Read the February 20 meeting.

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Jennifer L. Hall

Go ahead, Mayor. Mayor.

Valerie Amezcua

I hereby call the Santa Ana City Council meeting to order. This meeting is taking place with in-person attendance and by teleconference via Zoom. The public may access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel or the city's website. Please bear with us as the technology may disrupt the flow of the meeting. Madam Clerk, please conduct roll call.

Jennifer L. Hall

Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Becerra. Councilmember Hernandez. Councilmember Lopez. Here. Councilmember Penaloza. Councilmember Vasquez. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Phan. Here. Mayor Meskwa. Present. The records show we have four members. That is a quorum.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you. Are there any additions or deletions to the closed session, Madam Clerk?

Jennifer L. Hall

There are none.

Valerie Amezcua

Do any council members need to announce their abstentions and closed session items? Hearing none. Do we have any speakers for closed session?

Jennifer L. Hall

No, Mayor. There are no in-person Zoom or email comments related to closed session.

Valerie Amezcua

Perfect. Thank you. We'll now recess this portion of the meeting to consider the items listed on the closed SESSION AGENDA.

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Thai Viet Phan

Recording in progress.

Valerie Amezcua

»» Madam Clerk, ready?

Jennifer L. Hall

»» Yes, Mayor, go ahead.

Valerie Amezcua

»» Thank you. Thank you all very much for waiting while we were in closed session. We have covered some very important items. I hereby reconvene the Santa Ana City Council meeting to order this meeting is taking place with in-person attendance and by teleconference via zoom The public may access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel or the city's website Please bear with us as the technology may disrupt the flow of the meeting as a reminder This is a meeting to conduct the business of the city as mayor I'm afforded the opportunity to call for a recess slash break or even to clear the meeting room if a meeting becomes too

Valerie Amezcua

disruptive to properly conduct business warnings will be provided prior to any action being taken we appreciate your cooperation for everyone's safety per the fire marshal please do not stand or place objects in the aisles in front of the dais along the back wall of the council chambers or in front of the entrances and exits to ensure that all members of the public may watch and participate in the meeting without disruption designated media areas for filming and photography are marked with red tape at the back of the room Madam City Attorney, is there anything you want to clarify on that?

No, but I will remain available to help you interpret your rules of decorum if called upon.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you. Guidelines for members of the news media and anyone else who wishes to film or photograph the meeting are available in the lobby. During City Council presentations and oaths of office, guests of individuals being recognized are invited to come to the front to take photos. Madam Clerk, please conduct the roll call.

Jennifer L. Hall

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Becerra? Here. Council Member Hernandez? here councilmember Lopez councilmember panel OSA present councilmember Vasquez present mayor Pro Tem fan here mayor Meskwa present the record show all seven members present madam clerk before we proceed to the Pledge of Allegiance please make any announcement yes thank you for members of the public on zoom or teleconference to request to speak during public comments on agenda or non-agenda items within the city's jurisdiction you must dial star 9 from your phone or click the button labeled raise hand in zoom now in order to be the speaker

Jennifer L. Hall

queue once public comments commence this does not apply to public hearing item number 44 for which comments will be heard during that specific public hearing please hold your comments on that item until called upon during the public hearing thank you thank you madam clerk the first item on the

Valerie Amezcua

agenda is the pledge of allegiance i'd like to call up two wonderful ladies from the united United States Marine Corps please.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and and justice for all.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you for your service, and thank you. I know I invited you to come. Can you share with us briefly why it's so important to do this?

Ma'am, I believe that it's important because the flag represents or symbolizes the people and the people that have sacrificed a lot for this country and also the communities that support them.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you very much. Thank you for your service.

Thank you, ma'am. Applause Applause Applause

Valerie Amezcua

Words of inspiration provided by Natalie J. Graham. Please come to the podium.

Thank you. Thank you. W.S. Merman was a Poet Laureate, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and an advocate for the natural. and our human place within it. The poem that I'm going to read celebrates gratitude as a choice we can make again and again even in any darkness that we find ourselves. I hope that these words inspire us to nurture each kernel of gratitude in our lives. The poem is called Thanks. Listen, with the night falling we are saying thank you. We are stopping on the bridges to bow from the

the railings. We are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you. We are standing by the water thanking it, standing by the windows looking out in our directions, back from a series of hospitals, back from a mugging. After funerals, we are saying thank you. After the news of the dead, whether or not we knew them, we are saying thank you. Over telephones we are saying thank you, in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators, remembering wars and the police at the

door and the beatings on stairs, we are saying thank you. In the banks we're saying thank you, in the faces of the officials and the rich and of all who who will never change, we go on saying thank you, thank you. With the animals dying around us, taking our feelings, we are saying thank you. With the forest falling faster than the minutes of our lives, we are saying thank you. With the words going out like cells of a brain, with the cities growing over us, we are saying thank you faster and faster. With nobody listening, we are saying thank you, thank you.

We are saying and waving, dark though it is. Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you very much.

Valerie Amezcua

Madam Clerk, are there any additions or deletions to the City Council agenda?

Jennifer L. Hall

Yes, Mayor. I have two announcements. The first is for Ceremonial Presentation Number 1. Unfortunately, Alejandro Rodriguez is unable to attend tonight's meeting. And then for consent calendar item number 35, which was second amendments to agreements for City Council aid consultancy services This item has been removed by staff from your consideration. I'm sorry madam. Did you say item 35? Correct

Valerie Amezcua

Has been removed from the consent calendar

Valerie Amezcua

Okay, it's time for presentations at this time I would like to call up Willard Intermediate School Jazz Band for outstanding musical performance

Come on up, everybody.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Give these kids a big round of applause.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Parents can come up toward the front. Parents can come up toward the front to take videos and photos if you'd like.

David PenalozaItem 1

A los padres de familia, si quieren pasar enfrente a tomar fotos, por favor, pasen.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 1

Yes, parents, come on up and stand up here in the front, and you can take your pictures. If you want to come down a little bit or take a seat up here for photos. Wow, can you guys like double up maybe a little bit, or can you see everybody? Let me get out of the way. All right, can you see everybody? Everybody?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 1

I get so excited when I see our kids up here. It's so awesome.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 1

I can't say I have favorite schools, but I do.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 1

Okay. This is the Willard Intermediate School Jazz Band students. Tonight, I'm pleased to welcome them, a band comprised of top performing students. The band was selected as California representative for the Turnaround Arts National Student Showcase. Turnaround Arts is a program that works with local partners to transform schools through the strategic use of the arts. arts. Willard's Jazz Band will be performing around town later this year at local school concerts and the annual Boca del Oro Festival in downtown Santa Ana, so make sure you go

Valerie AmezcuaItem 1

see them. In addition to their musical performances, the Willard Jazz Band proactively participates in the Neighbors of Santa Ana group, consistently aiding neighbors in need, embodying a strong sense of community responsibility. Today we'd like to congratulate all of the student members of the Willard Intermediate Jazz Band, their music teacher Dylan Aguilera, Principal Berta Benavidez, all the other staff and the parents. Let's give the round of applause right especially the parents thank you to all the parents. We can't do this without all of your parents and all the

Valerie AmezcuaItem 1

the school staff. The City of Santa Ana is so proud of your outstanding musical achievements. We wish you the best as you perform, as you actively participate in civic engagement activities and continue to make our Golden City proud. As a previous school board member for eight years and now as the Mayor of Santa Ana, I can't tell you how so very proud I am of all of you and I'm looking forward to when you get to high school and where you're going going to go and be on in college. And so at this time, I'm going to call up Principal Bertha Benavidez to get to say a few words.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you to them. They did it all. And the amazing educators that are here teaching these beautiful kids. I'm just so proud to be the principal. I'm proud of them and everything they're going to do. I'm just so excited that they are going to be able to go to Washington, DC and perform at the Kennedy Center and it is incredible because I believe many of our students have never been in an airplane so I'm excited just to go on an airplane with them you guys didn't all come along but congratulations to mr.

Delacorda mr. Aguilera to Robin which has supported us in so many efforts to make this happen gracias for this in familia por esta lucky sinus today's a no severe estuviera pasando lo que esta pasando con sus hijos usted son increíble por usted de seos esta naqui les pido natural as a decor a song los adoro y yo los voy a cuidar in Washington okay Okay? Thank you. And thank you to the mayor and all the representatives here in the city of Santa Ana.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 1

So yes, they are gonna go to Washington, D.C. Let's give them a round of applause. So I'm not gonna give out all of them. I'm gonna give these to you. So let's take a photo. And I always like to share, so I'd like to invite the council, whoever would like to join me. And then I want my own picture with you all.

Thank you.

Can I put my hand here?

How about?

Okay, everybody look ahead and smile. One, two, and three for me. Thank you. Parents over here.

Oh Willard. Good!

One, two, three. One, two, three.

Alright, don't move.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Wait, wait, let's get some poor parents up here.

Come on, parents. Come on in. Come on in. Come on in. Come on in. You're still here. Come on in. You're still here. No, .

. . . . . . . . . . . . I didn't see that coming. I didn't see that coming. You're right.

It's the best part of our meeting. You guys ready to join? Come on down. Come on down.

Come on down. Come on down. Come on down, Barry. Come down. Come on. All the way down. All the way down. Come on down. Come on down. Can you get us over here? Come on down.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 1

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Valerie AmezcuaItem 1

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. . Okay, everybody's got it? One more.

All right, ready? Let us see your kids. Here we go. Look right here. One, two, three. Are you Willard? One, two, three. Willard! Willard. One, two, three. Willard!

All right.

Thank you. Thank you guys. Alright, thank you guys.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 1

Thank you guys all. Congratulations. Thank you.

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Valerie AmezcuaItem 1

Okay, next presentation by Mayor Pro Tem Sam.

Thank you.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

You know, they always have me follow the children. You got to have me go first before the children. May I please ask of Sean Lee, Brooke Sorrell, and Gia Lee?

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

and your family and the child what I got a child y'all okay I'll stand to the aside so all right hello everyone so i am doing a proclamation declaring february 10 2024 is that

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

wing down also known as lunar new year so that for short is celebrated in vietnamese culture lots of east and southeast asian cultures and it's celebrated on the second new moon after the winter solstice and can be in january february i asked for a child you see i did i complained about a child wanting one and here we are um i you know i have a cat you guys so according to tradition in many asian cultures february 10 2024 marks the first day of the year of the dragon

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

People born in the Year of the Dragon are known to be charismatic, intelligent, naturally lucky, and gifted. As someone born in the Year of the Cat that just passed, I'm pretty jealous, but here we are. Today we want to present this proclamation for Tết Huỳnh Đăng to Wynn's Kitchen to recognize you all for your contributions to the Vietnamese American community and more importantly the city of Santa Ana. Wynn's Kitchen was founded in 2015 in the city of Orange. We'll tell Councilmember John Demetria to come down come on down. But it has since expanded to six locations in Southern California. The restaurant is known for

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

its modern take on traditional Vietnamese dishes that's made to order, that's fresh and flavorful, and it includes bulgogi steak bun mee sandwiches, garlic noodles, and jumbo tiger shrimp rice bowls. I also can attest that your teas and your Vietnamese coffee are delicious. So we brought Wynn's Kitchen here because the headquarters for Wynn's Kitchen is right here in Santa Ana. It's the central hub for Wynn's Kitchen's operations including its management, administration, catering services, which we had tonight, and its franchising. Last month Wynn's Kitchen sponsored the Little Saigon

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

monument unveiling on January 26th, and they catered food for our performers at Santa Ana's first ever Tet Festival at Centennial Park. So thank you so much to Sean, Gia, Brooke, and your family for being with us today and for supporting the Vietnamese American community in the city of Santa Ana. And so now, therefore, the city of Santa Ana declares February 10th, 2024, 2024, as Tet Wing Dang, also known as Lunar New Year. And we encourage all of our residents, big and small, to celebrate the richness of the cultural heritage within our community and recognize the valuable contributions of Asian Americans to our city.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

And we wish all of you happiness, longevity, health, and wealth. Thank you.

Thank you. Wow, thank you so much.

You know, we just had a joke the other day in the office, like hopefully this rain doesn't take out the power again and prolong this any longer, but I'm glad everyone's here. I'm glad everyone's safe. I wanna start by saying, I wanna give my deepest appreciation to Mayor Pro Tem, Ty Phan, and all of the city council members. We are honored for this recognition. condition. Having our headquarter in Santa Ana is a huge step forward for us. We were going from our typical 1,500 square foot space to now a 3,000 square foot facility and that

has allowed us to do so much more. We are proud not only to be able to serve our people in the community but also being able to dedicate now a catering department to serve small businesses to large businesses all over Orange County. And this is only possible because we have great team members, we have great management, and so this recognition is also for them. For me personally, I'm just really excited to continue to grow New Wind's Kitchen, to continue to showcase what we're about to everyone,

one to develop new projects and just new concepts that you know we have in mind and so you know being in the right city is extremely important and you know I couldn't be happier to have our headquarter in Santa Ana thank you again for everything oh so we're right off Harbor Boulevard and sunflower right next to ikea near the 405. so yeah come over anytime i'm there most of the time and uh come in and say hi thank you thank you so much

Thai Viet Phan

council members mayor if you'd like to come down to support our local business

David Penaloza

i would personally like to thank you for your very generous portions in your garlic noodles come in clutch every time.

Thank you.

Phil Bacerra

so if i could have rosa carvajal and mihael basila come up

Phil Bacerra

So you may be wondering why I have these two members of our community up here with me this evening. me. Come on up. So we've all heard the phrase that it takes a village. That's not just to raise a child, but also to keep a child safe. So on January 6th, 2024, Santa Ana police officers responded to a call of unknown trouble where an adult male was reportedly seen trying to kidnap a female child at the nearby Town Square condos located not too far from here on 3rd Street, just a quarter of a

Phil Bacerra

mile from this chamber. Now before the police arrived on the scene, Rosa and another resident of the Town Square condo community observed the attempted kidnapping as it was progressing and alerted the on-site security guard. So the witnesses and the security guard chased the suspect and then detained him as he tried to flee with that child. As the security guard wrestled the suspect to the ground and detained him, one of the witnesses removed the child from the suspect and comforted her until police arrived. And thankfully, that suspect was arrested for

Phil Bacerra

kidnapping. Now, also thankfully that the child was unharmed and she was reunited with her family immediately. Now, we would not be talking about a happy ending to that story if it wasn't for community members like these springing into action to protect that child. So on behalf of the City of Santa Ana, I want to present these certificates of appreciation as an expression of our city's sincere appreciation and gratitude for your heroic actions to save that child from being kidnapped. So I want to thank you both from the City of Santa Ana.

So if you'd like to say something.

Phil Bacerra

Silent heroes, don't you love it? But you know what? Honestly, it's so wonderful that we have folks like this that stand up in our community and protect our community. We have a wonderful police force, but they work off of what we, the community, do. And these folks, they went above and beyond to protect our community's children. So let's give them another round of applause, please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. I'd just like to invite you to if you see any children who need help Please don't look away if they need any help go ahead and get involved just do it

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you next up is councilman Hernandez

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

All right. Thank you very much. If we can please have Gweny's Dollhouse and Gwendolyn and Hill come to the front as well as the Shipp family. I know Dwayne Shipp is in the house today. If you could please join. We want Gweny's Dollhouse family members to join us up here in the front as well. Because anytime we celebrate local businesses, we celebrate Celebrate family.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Yes, how you doing?

I'm doing good.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Doing good?

Yeah. Okay.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Absolutely, absolutely. Yes. We've got to have family with us before we start.

Hello there. Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

All right, let's please give a warm welcome and a round of applause for Gwendolyn's Dollhouse.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

We are here in the beautiful city of Santa Ana, February 20th, 2024, and we're celebrating black history. The month of February is known as Black History Month. It is a month where we acknowledge the many feats, the many contributions, and the successes of the African American community. We would not be the country that we are today without the bravery of the African American community. They have helped this country progress and move forward and so let's please make a round of applause for progress.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Today I have the honor of celebrating a local business from our community. Today we are celebrating Gweny's Dollhouse, a beauty salon in our city of Santa Ana. We are joined by Gwendolyn Ann Hill, who is the owner, and it is an honor to be here with you, Gwendolyn. We're joined by friends and family. Let's please make sure that they feel welcome. I give them a round of applause.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Today, as we commemorate Black History Month, it's important for us to highlight the stories that exist within our own backyard. Santa Ana's oldest black-owned small businesses, one of which is Gweny's Dollhouse. We are celebrating a monumental 50 years in the city of Santa Ana. Gwendolyn Ann Hill started her beauty salon business in 1974. Back then, she was, She was, do you mind if I say? She was 30 years old. She was 30 years old starting off her business. And she was wondering how was she going to manage her dollhouse? How was she going to manage having such a busy schedule with having her salon?

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

50 years later, she has three locations in our beautiful city of Santa Ana. She has never considered relocating any of these businesses outside of our city. And that is because this is her home. This is where her story was able to help so many of the people that you see beside her today. Over the years, Gweny's Dollhouse has participated in countless community engagements events, including giving haircuts to children who stayed at the Orange Wood Foundation. The Orange Wood Foundation is an organization that serves foster youth and Gweny's Dollhouse has been a contributing

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

partner to their events. Fortunately, as we know, there is a lot of businesses that call Santa Ana home, not all of which were able to survive the pandemic. Gweny's Dollhouse was one of those businesses that was fortunate to be able to survive the pandemic and to be able to stay within the the city of Santa Ana. We are proud that her business is stronger than ever. Today the city of Santa Ana is proud to present this proclamation to Gweny's Dollhouse, who is celebrating 50 years of service to our community, decades of outstanding contributions and achievements to the African Americans in Santa Ana. Let's

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

please give a round of applause for Gweny's Dollhouse.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Gweny, if you would do us the honor of sharing some words and just tell us about your your journey in Santa Ana and what this means to you. It's been 50

50 year journey. I'm 80, I had a birthday February 10th and I'm glad for that. But my husband was in the Marine Corps and he was stationed here in California so we came to California in 1964 then my family joined me in 1966 66 and we came from Kansas that's my god but it wasn't easy but when I was 8 years old I knew what I

wanted to do and I said I want to be a hairdresser my father was a barber my My grandfather was a barber, my mother was a hairdresser, so it was in my blood.

And after that, from eight years old on, this is what I said that I wanted to do, and I was able to accomplish that. I didn't know I'd be doing it for 50 years like this, but I still do it, and I still love it. And I appreciate you, Jonathan. Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

It's an honor to celebrate you.

And the city of Santa Ana. Thank you so much.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Now we have a lot of beautiful black history in the city. The Orange County Heritage Council President, Dwayne Shipp, is with us today. His mother, Helen Shipp, started the Black History Parade 45 years ago in our city. You actually have been a big advocate for businesses in our city. If you could do us the honors and just talk about why Gweny's Dollhouse was so important to the city's history, that I think it supported the residents. No. So if you wouldn't mind doing us the honors of sharing. Thank you.

Jonathan always put me on the spot. It's important to recognize Gwennie, just like Duke's Barbershop, Walt's Wax and Polish. They've been in business since 75. Duke's been in business since 39, 74. There's a lot of businesses that's here in the city that's been here for a while. and like Santa Ana is our home so it was one year ago our mayor and council came to the to the house and we did the street toppers for my mother so one year

later we celebrate history again and Santa Ana is our home and it's just important for us to always recognize we here you know at the end of day is one race, the human race. We all have different cultures and we appreciate Santa Ana for always recognizing our culture and honoring our history. So I could go on all day but I'm not gonna go on all day. But so when it was Black History Month, Wendy's name was on the list. You know she's been in business. She's 80 years old. She's beautiful. 80 years old looking like this is still in

business so you know we had to recognize her so that's pretty much it just want

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

to say thank you guys for your time we're gonna take a picture and then once again thank you Gwennie for the 50 years of service to the city of Santa Ana

thank you Gwennie's Dollhouse 1002 East 17th Street Street Suite C Santa Ana California 927 oh one five four three eight eight six seven Tuesday through Saturday

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

everything

thank you so if you guys could just stay with us one more second

David Penaloza

Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear Gwenny. Happy Birthday to you.

Valerie Amezcua

Please.

Thank you.

Jessie Lopez

Okay. Okay. Mao and family, please come on up.

Jessie Lopez

I went to Willard. Hola.

Jessie Lopez

Hi. Hola. Hi. Good to see you.

Jessie Lopez

All right. Good evening, everyone. We are here to recognize Mauricio Yejir Trejo Najera, aka Mal, as we call him in the community, for his outstanding contributions to the city of Santa Ana. and Mauricio Yehidre Jornagera, aka Mal, is a community builder, an artist, a DJ, photographer, and community organizer. Mal's family immigrated to the United States around 2005 from Cuernavaca, Mexico, and he grew up all over Orange County, including the city of Sonana, where they reside now, and they constantly moved from city to city, working to survive like so many of our

Jessie Lopez

current residents. And early in his childhood, he saw how his mom created a a village of people around her, close relatives, friends, neighbors. And it was then that he realized that his mom wasn't just about feeding and keeping a roof over their heads. It was also about creating ways for others to gain access to more resources. And at a young age at 11, Mal began to work after school, weekends, and in the holiday between breaks. He cleaned homes, learned how to landscape, worked at a construction site with his uncles, and picked up service jobs to support his family and his village.

Jessie Lopez

In 2018, Mal graduated from UC Merced with a bachelor's in management and business economics. He then moved to LA looking for work in the nonprofit world, mainly to support his own desire to help support youth of color. Today, Mal is a multidisciplinary creative and artist. He creates and tells stories through different mediums. He is, as I said earlier, a community organizer. I know, Mau, it's not on my speaking points, but you're involved with the Rapid Response Network, who does a lot of great work here in the city. And that really, I think, speaks to your character

Jessie Lopez

and your dedication to keeping our community safe. And so he works towards advocating for policies that eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline and instead create a community-based program to support the well-being of students. He is also a DJ, a curator, host of his own radio show called The Rotation. So Mauricio, thank you for your outstanding contributions to the arts and culture of our city. I'm really proud to be recognizing you and

Jessie Lopez

And so you are truly an inspiration to so many of the youth that are gonna see you tonight, and we wish you the very best in all of your endeavors. Thank you.

Good evening, everybody. I tend to not be a very fan of words like this, but it is truly an honor. Thank you to Councilmember Lopez for this recognition. Thank you to my mom, my sister. As I was driving here in the rain, I was contemplating around a lot of the values that really got my family and just the lineage of people I come from. A lot of those values are rooted in community, supporting one another and integrity and respect. A lot of the work that I've been able to do over the last 10 years has truly been with people and for the people. You know, today is Black History Month and we celebrate that.

And it's an honor to be acknowledged along, you know, other community members here as well. But I think one of the biggest points, too, that I really want to be able to share today and why the work it is that I do is to truly create systemic change to support people. And I think the city of Santa Ana became a home for my family. It's where we went to church. It's where a lot of our history here in the United States kind of came to be. And so a lot of those values really remain true to us in terms of culture, community, and supporting one another.

And at least for me, working with system-impacted youth and as a system-impacted person myself, is a belief of multiple chances. Young people deserve multiple chances. They deserve the love and care and support that oftentimes pushes students out of schools and into the prison system. And so I'm really proud to share that some of the work, not only here in the city, that has aligned with those values, we've pushed for universal representation to support immigrant and undocumented people ensure that they are represented by the city when they are in court including housing and rent control support for community members

and through the Orange County Rapper Response Network we've impacted state policy and even here locally in our County to bring in attention to how much police and immigration collude together to transfer over our community members over to ICE where I can now proudly say after a year about that advocacy though we went from being the the number one county that was transferring people over to ice by police collaboration to now being almost like a a good 10 of that was cut and so a lot of the advocacy has a lot for for these contributions uh to truly support um and so much of that even the work that

i've done in la county has impacted the funding over millions and millions of dollars throughout the state to support building community schools many of which now in orange county and here in Santana being fully funded and for the first time ever in a president's budget it was included a funding over billions of dollars across the country to support community schools so when I come here and I accept this award for my contributions to the community it goes beyond just here in the city of Santana and truly grateful for the work that you all are doing to create these type of

spaces for our community and by our people and as always you know the work continues and will continue to hold you all accountable you know in supporting immigrants, houseless folks, and even you know the passing of hopefully a resolution to end the ceasefire. Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

okay on to staff presentations mr city manager can we please have staff presentation

Madam Mayor, do you want to start with the Cal Optima presentation? Madam Chair?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 7

Yes, let's do that. Thank you.

Well, Cal Optima is here this evening, and we'd like to welcome them and thank you for your time to be with here this evening. This was requested by the City Council, and I'll turn it over to them.

Great. Good evening. Wow, what a wonderful set of presentations. It was a privilege to be a part of that. I can't thank you enough for the cameras in the back of the room. I'm going to go to Gwenny's and see if they can do something about the bald spot on the back of my head, Mayor. Well, it is nice to be here, Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem and City Council members, certainly our colleagues from law enforcement and all the city staff. A lot goes into putting these meetings together, and we appreciate being part of your agenda. My name is Michael Hunt, and I'm the current CEO at CalOptima Health.

We are the Medi-Cal Health Plan here in Orange County, and I'm joined by my colleague, An Tran. Fran Ahn is the director of the social service agency of the county of Orange. And we're going to talk a little bit tonight about Medi-Cal efforts and the recent changes in state law that expands Medi-Cal coverage to individuals regardless of their immigration status. So our next slide. If you'll notice, there are about 3.1 million residents here in Orange County. And of that, we insure about 960,000 of those folks. So about a third of the county. It's really quite extraordinary.

Here in the city of Santa Ana, there's a population of about 310,000. We insure 164,000. We insure 52% or half of the entire city. Medi-Cal health insurance is provided by the state. We have a $4 billion annual budget, $3.6 billion from the state and $400 million from CMS Medicare. We receive no funds from the county. Although we're a public agency, we are an independent with a fiduciary nine-member board. If you're an individual and qualify for Medi-Cal, you generally make an income of less than $21,000 a year.

If you're a family of four, you make less than $41,000 a year. And if you qualify for Medi-Cal health insurance, there is no premium, there is no copay, and there is no deductible. It's provided fully by the state and funded accordingly. We have three programs. The Medi-Cal program for the majority of the members. We have a One Care program for individuals that are seniors and are they're old enough to have Medicare and they have Medi-Cal both. And we refer to them as a Medi-Medi or Medicare and Medi-Cal. And they can qualify for one of our products which pretty much provides all their healthcare

at no cost. In addition, we have a program for all-inclusive care of the elderly, our PACE program. It's over here in Garden Grove. And if you have Medicare and Medi-Cal, and you have certain medical conditions that otherwise untreated would require you to be in a nursing home, this program provides day services. We pick you up, we drop you off, we have a medical clinic, we have doctors, we have nurses, we have physical therapists, we have dieticians, we have social workers, we have activities folks and it's all under one roof we have about 450 individuals that are

currently signed up to that program and we're looking to expand it in addition this year starting in January the governor signed in the law the ability of individual residents in state of California of all ages regardless of immigration status to be now eligible for medical and so one of the things that we want to do is encourage individuals and family members if you If you have someone that's afraid of going and signing up for Medi-Cal and health insurance because they're worried about their immigration status, we want to help overcome that fear. Your data will not move from the state database for Medi-Cal to immigration.

We want people to get their health insurance. We do not want them using the emergency room as a primary care office. We want them to have a medical home. We want them to have a primary care physician. We want them to have a place to go to get the care that they need, whether that's a hospital, a clinic, or other. And it's important to us that those individuals understand that. In January of this year, there were a number of individuals that had what was called limited scope Medi-Cal. And as of January 1, they now have all the Medi-Cal services. We onboarded 49,000 members in January alone.

We estimate out there, for those that have immigration status concerns, there's another 40,000 to 70,000 individuals that have yet to receive benefits to which they're entitled. And so, An Tran, who's the director of the Social Service Agency, will talk about that process. The way that it works is, if you qualify for Medi-Cal benefits, that's approved by the state. The application goes through benefitscal.com or the social service agency. You fill out the application. It's sent to the state. The state either says yes or no, you qualify. If you qualify, they send the file back to social service agency.

They then institute the process to enroll them. And then we're notified as the health plan, issue an insurance card, and we assign them to a medical home. So I'll let Anh pick it up from there.

Thank you, Mayor Emescuwa, council members for having us here to talk about this important topic. What I'm going to talk about is the Medi-Cal renewal process, which is currently in process right now. Every member of Medi-Cal needs to renew the Medi-Cal because of the PHE lifting the public health emergency and COVID protections have been lifted. And in order to do that, we're gonna talk about four easy steps that residents can do. And it's important because over 50% or half, one in two of Santa Ana residents are covered by Medi-Cal. The first and most important step is to update your contact information.

We need to know where you are and who you are so that we send important information to you. The best way that you could do that is online through benefitscal.com. It's an online portal 24-7 so people could log on in the comfort of their own home, look at their information, and do all that they need to do online. The second option is to call our call center, and the number is right there. And our call center are open until 8 p.m. at night, Monday through Friday. Or they could do it in person in one of our regional offices. We do have a regional office here in the city of Santa Ana on Grand Street if that is more

convenient for our residents. The second step is to create or check your online account. And this is the benefitscow.com. This is a new portal that was launched by the state last year, and it allows residents to be able to do almost everything online in the comfort of their own home. They need to create an account, and they can check their renewal month and make whatever updates is online. This includes filling out applications, submitting verifications, and even corresponding with their eligibility workers in order for them to check their eligibility status. Step three is check their mail.

So about 60 days before their renewal month, and what they're supposed to do to renew their Medi-Cal eligibility, they will receive one of two correspondence from us. The first one is an automatic renewal letter stating that we have enough information on file to determine your eligibility. nothing else needs to be done. You will have another year of Medi-Cal eligibility and you can rest assured that that will be done automatically. The second piece of information, the correspondence that they may receive is a yellow envelope and it will be a yellow envelope

containing instructions and an application. These individuals are those that we do not have enough information or we do not have sufficient information in order for us to determine ongoing eligibility for them. The form and all the information will be contained in there, so please do not discard this envelope and pay very close attention when they receive a yellow envelope. And the last step is complete the form if you receive the yellow envelope. And you could do it in multiple ways. The easiest option is online. They can log on to benefitscal.com, create an

account, and be able to complete all the information and submit all the necessary information and and upload that in the comfort of their own home. They could do it by phone, calling our call center, in person, or simply just complete the application that is sent to them via the yellow envelope and mail that back into us. And we'll be able to help determine the eligibility. But we ask that residents act fast and they don't wait. We're expecting a lot of volume and we are getting a lot of people who are interested in renewing the Medi-Cal coverage. So please, please, once they get the yellow envelope,

please act quickly. And with that again these are some resources for residents in order for them to get the assistance that they need. We have the number with Cal Optima Health Care Services, Health Customer Services, or also with the Orange County Social Services and the numbers are here for residents. Thank you

Valerie AmezcuaItem 7

so very much for this wonderful presentation. Let me see if there's any questions from the council this time I don't see any I'm sorry go ahead

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

Mayor Poteau thank you thank you so much for the presentation I I was a Cal Optima recipient pretty much until I aged out at 25 I think so so it's really good to know what we're doing here in the city I guess it's a little bit more of a comment but i want to commend your team the cal optima team for for reaching out to my office because on april 13th we're going to be doing a health fair at centennial park in conjunction with the oc social services agency and supervisor sarmento's office from 9 a.m to 1 p.m specifically

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

to ensure that undocumented residents who are not insured or don't know that they're eligible can sign up and you're gonna have Vietnamese speakers, Spanish speakers, I believe Korean language speakers, so I just want to commend your team for being the ones who reached out to us to do that work and so I look forward to receiving more information. I hope that we can grow our relationship here in this city so that you can attend all of our events, right? You attend all of our events because we know how much need there is for you here. Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 7

Thank you. I don't see any other speakers. I'm sorry. Okay, go ahead, Councilman Harris.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I too just wanted to say thank you for your time and for today's presentation and for expanding services to our community members. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 7

Councilman Lopez?

Jessie LopezItem 7

Yes. Thank you for coming and presenting such vital information as we all saw. This is a service that a lot of our constituents depend on. And so thank you for sharing that information. SHEN AND HAWK I HEARD YOUR HEARING THAT WE WANT THEM AT ALL OF THE CITY SPONSORED EVENTS SO THANK YOU

Valerie AmezcuaItem 7

THANK YOU MICHAEL I'LL SEE YOU SOON ALL RIGHT YOU TAKE CARE THANK YOU THANK YOU VERY MUCH

Valerie AmezcuaItem 7

MR CITY MANAGER DO WE HAVE ANY OTHER STAFF PRESENTATIONS SIR DO NOT OKAY THANK YOU MADAM CITY ATTORNEY DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO REPORT OUT OF CLOSE

session mayor council members members of the public as you all know we had a very lengthy closed session discussion this afternoon that began at 4 p.m but we do not have any reportable

Valerie AmezcuaItem 7

action from our conversations thank you very much this is the time of the meeting for the city council to receive comments from the public on agenda non-agenda items madam city clerk please explain the public comment procedures and call the first speakers thank you mayor pursuant to

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

resolution number 2023-047 speakers are requested to address the city council directly and to refrain from profane language racial epitaphs and libelous or slanderous statements that disturb the decorum of the meeting pursuant to the brown act the city council may not enter into discussion at this time speakers will have three minutes for their comments before calling the speakers i'd like to report the following summary of emails as of today at 2 p.m on the consent and non and business calendars we received a total of 20 e-comments 18 non-agenda comments and two related

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

to item number 28 those were distributed to the city council and posted on the city's website we will now hear from members of the public that are physically present in the council chamber followed by those on the conference caller zoom to provide comments on agenda or non-agenda items please state your name and the ward or neighborhood that you reside in for the record And the first speaker, Dale Helvig, followed by Christine Contreras. And if you could line up in the center aisle when your name is called. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, staff. Just wanted to say I hope you support item number 31. I think the lighting at Santiago Park is worth the investment. That place has been dark for a long time. It's a haven for bad activity, and I think the lighting will greatly improve it. So thank you guys ahead of time for voting yes on that, and thanks, Hawk, for bringing it to my attention, and I appreciate it. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

you Christine Contreras followed by I yeah kind of what T good evening madam

mayor City Council members and staff my name is Christine Contreras I am from the La Jolla Lucenio band of Mission Indians sorry bear with me I want to take a moment to acknowledge and honor the original inhabitants of our land the the Hashiman and the Gavalino tribe. I am with Eagleman Housing Project. The Eagleman Housing Project consists of seven organizations and advisory committee made up in Orange County. Sorry.

Sorry.

American Indian residents who have experienced homelessness and have had facing homelessness insecurities, some who are here with me tonight. Eagleman Housing Project aims to end homelessness in Orange County and American Indian and Native American, Native Alaskan American. According to the data pulled from Orange County health care agencies, data,

equality, sorry, care agencies, let's see, the city of Santa Ana is an American Indian Indian Alaska Native Hotspot and I come to you today to let you know that our presence and our mission, we hope that Santa Ana City Council helps uplift the voices of the supporting and advocates efforts.

Sorry.

And open to the meeting with helping us find solutions. Please take our handout and learn more about how to help connect. Thank you for your time. Can I leave these up here? Okay. Thank you. Enjoy your evening.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Aya Kanawati followed by Fernando De Varas.

Good afternoon, Council. Thank you for entertaining me for three minutes. My name is Aya and I work in Ward 1. I'm here today to talk about the genocide in Palestine. Over the past four months, my country has financed a holocaust, mass carnage, children shredded, the smell of decomposing corpses in the air, and flesh burned to the bone with white phosphorus made in Arkansas, United States, America. I have watched this genocide of 36,000 human beings with my own tax dollars. I have heard their screams through my phone. The name of my country is written on the bombs dropping on them.

Our federal leaders have suppressed our desires for a ceasefire, although 83% of Democratic voters, and voters in Santa Ana, by the way, are pro-ceasefire. We witness our federal leaders dismiss these concerns and dismiss 36,000 human lives. Dozens of children have frozen to their death due to being displaced. There are reports of families eating donkeys, cats, and other wild animals. There are also images of cats and dogs eating human corpses. People finding piles of skeletons laying in every corner. They don't even know the simple luxury of being buried.

50,000 women are currently pregnant with no access to water, food, prenatal care, nor anesthesia. Much like the former, women in Gaza do not have access to basics like water and food, hence are delaying their periods via chemicals or using tent fabrics as menstrual hygiene. With 1.9 million Palestinians displaced in the winter, disease, starvation, and dehydration are spreading quickly, so people do not have clean water, restrooms, or sanitation.

As the CEO of CalOptima, Michael Hahn, shared earlier, full-scope Medi-Cal as a basic thing Israelis have was only expanded this year for all age groups and only in California, so not in any other states in America. That means that Israelis have more rights than we do as taxpayers in this country. A joke. While our own mothers and fathers are turned away from hospitals, which has happened to my own family, our taxes support Israel's universal health care system. While our money is being dropped in the form of bombs onto human beings,

we have potholes in our streets, limited program funding, teachers paying out of pocket for school supplies, and the lingering hope that one day we can live a decent, dignified life as working class Americans. I want to leave you with this stat. Every 10 minutes, one child dies in Palestine. For this meeting, that means 16 children have died. And every single meeting that you push this ceasefire resolution is more children that die that are on every single one of your conscience. And just because you don't see us here today, that doesn't mean we're gone. It means we're at home voting.

We're prepping to get all of you guys out of office.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

free Palestine next speaker Fernando Devorah followed by Christian Hernandez

good evening council three minutes this time all right so I do have a few items that I wanted to talk about today and like the previous speaker said trust that while our numbers are humble today we're at work working on campaigns for the upcoming elections so first thing I wanted to talk about at the January 16th meeting when we had a showing of people coming out to call for a ceasefire we We had Palestinian families talking about the suffering that they're seeing in the West Bank, in Gaza, that is impacting their families directly. This was the response from Council Member Phil Becerra, who just stepped into the room.

Phil, do you remember blowing a kiss to the families who are pleading for just mercy from you guys to show some kind of compassion? That was your response. So first off, I feel like you owe the public an apology for that. And if anyone wants to see that, it's on the YouTube. Go find it yourself. This is what you were blowing a kiss to. This is what you're blowing a kiss to. There are people who are calling for an end to this kind of suffering. If you need the numbers, I'll send them to you. Like the previous speaker said, more than 30,000 civilians killed, half of them children. Yeah.

Now, on a more local issue, I see that there was a sign in the back corner addressed to the press, members, journalists, to let them know that you are free to record from any position unreserved here in the council. In response to the December 19th meeting where Mayor Meskwa, you, number one, kicked everyone out of the room. again there's images of that calling in a line of police to defend you from the empty seats and then when I sat up here in the front you ordered that I go to the back of the room for no apparent reason other than spite it felt like so I'm glad that that policy has been amended thank you council member Vasquez

Lopez and Hernandez for pushing forward on that supporting free speech on that note at the last time that we came here I was told that submitting a verbal complaint against the mayor for silencing people and infringing on our FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT WAS NOT SUFFICIENT SO CITY ATTORNEY AND CITY CLERK I SENT AN EMAIL RECENTLY CALLING FOR AN ETHICS COMPLAINT AGAINST THE MAYOR FOR HER ACTIONS ON THE DECEMBER 19TH MEETING SO IF THAT IS NOT SUFFICIENT PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT THE PROPER PROCEDURE IS BECAUSE I KNOW THERE'S A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO WOULD LIKE TO FOLLOW SUIT AND JUST ONE MORE ITEM I WANT TO MENTION AGAIN

MAYOR MEZCUANA THAT YOU'RE RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION AND I NOTICED ON THE AGENDA TODAY I'M A NERD I READ THE AGENDA'S WHEN YOU ALL COME HERE AND I SEE THAT item 35 is calling for your chief of staff Claudia Perez to be reinstated with the 60,000 per year agreement I've met Claudia she's a very lovely woman I have no issues with that but I also see that she's serving as your campaign manager and that you have an upcoming birthday fundraiser congratulations on your birthday but I really feel that there's a potential conflict of interest if you're paying your chief of staff and also having her employed to operate for

your elections so I feel like that's something that might need to come into the question. All right, that's all. Thank you. Next speaker, Christian Hernandez,

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

followed by Nina Jurek. Christian Hernandez. Nina.

Hello. Just for the record, I'm back. I might be a familiar face to many of you. For those that don't know me, my name is Nina Jurek and I live in Ward 5 in beautiful Washington Square. I'm also co-president of the Washington Square Neighborhood Association. My purpose here today is to ask for funding in the mid-year budget for a feasibility study for the vacant it land within our neighborhood. Our desire is for a neighborhood walkable park at this site. We have a willing seller who's been in contact with the City of Santa Ana originally two years ago. Talks have stalled. We've worked hard to bring this seller and the City of

Santa Ana together for mutual gain. It's not been any substantive communication with the seller. There's been some, but quite frankly, he's a little agitated, frustrated. Further, he's indicated that he'll be looking elsewhere to secure a willing buyer for his property so the time is now and the timing is critical for this as many of you already know we live in an environmental justice area we're short on parks this vacant land is in a perfect spot within our neighborhood the Parks and Recreation Committee toured this location last year and all agreed

it would be a perfect addition to the overall plan of adding more green space to the city of santa ana to our neighborhood this past summer my team has canvassed the neighborhood gauging interest for a park and there's an overwhelming majority for a park at this location be happy to provide we've got signed petitions be happy to submit them our neighborhood is evolving this past holiday season and it was amazing. There were many more families than I'd ever seen before walking in our neighborhood, viewing the holiday decorations, just walking the streets, observing just the camaraderie,

the family atmosphere, and I've never seen so many young families with young children. We need this park. We desperately need this park. It would be wonderful to have a meeting place for for us, a playground for kids to thrive. I urge you for your support for a feasibility study so we can complete step one and our goal for a beautiful walkable park in Washington Square. And thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity. Good to see so many familiar faces and thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Next speaker, Pat Lenahan, followed by Lupe Lopez.

I'm Pat Linehan. I am the vice president of the Washington Square Neighborhood Association. and I wish to reiterate the remarks that Nina just made regarding the feasibility study and to try to establish a park in our community with that vacant land. I have lived in Santa Ana for more than 30 years, and this month marks my ninth anniversary for living in Washington Square. I really did not know that neighborhoods like this could exist here in California.

I came from Chicago. It didn't happen. But we have an incredible group of people, neighbors who care about each other, neighbors who look out for each other, neighbors who help clean things up, people who value their homes and the the community. And we want to keep our neighborhood free of any high density institutions, any high density housing. We want to keep our community as great and

involved as it is. We have so many events during the year. Chili Cook-Off, Oktoberfest, Wine Walk. I started a neighborhood board game night that we have once a month. We also have other lots of other activities that go on. We have people interested in dogs. Our neighborhood association purchased a microchip reader and one of our neighbors will read the microchip, mark it on our list and everything because we don't want the stray dogs getting picked up,

lost, whatever. We want to do as much even for our animals. So I think this gives you an idea of what Nita said about the holidays. Oh my gosh, it was incredible. But it started with Halloween. We gave out 7,500 pieces of candy. Okay? We had an incredible group of people. We have an incredible neighborhood, and we want to keep it growing in the same spirit. Thank you. And this is Beth.

Beth, she's a neighbor, and she's here in agreement. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Lupe Lopez.

Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, members of the Board. My name is Lupe, and I'm here as Indigenous Woman Rising, which is one of the seven partners to Eagle Mid-Housing Project. And what I'm sharing with you is that Santa Ana is one of the major cities of Native Americans being homeless out of all the cities of Orange County. And so what we're trying to do as Eagleman Housing Project is end Native Americans being homeless in Orange County. Right now we're doing a survey, working with Advanced OC, to make sure that we find numbers of our percentages, of what city are our Native people located,

and are they insured, are they in secured housing, homeless, homeless, what the situation is. And so that is where boots on the ground trying to find out where our community is at. But here in this flyer, one of the works that we're doing is aligning ourselves with HUD agency programs. So this Saturday, we would like to invite each and every one of you to come, meet the experts, and also show your support. And it's It's going to be held at the Orange County Community Housing Corporation. We're building an alliance with them because they want to make sure that our numbers are

increasing of Native people that are getting Section 8 housing, that they are having some financial planning to make sure that we're buying a home. And not only that, but we're aligning ourselves with Legacy Bank. Legacy Bank is a new Native American-owned bank. It's owned by Saboba Indian Reservation, but they're going to come and see how can we provide the HUD 184 American Indian Home Loan Program to make sure that Natives are buying homes, being the home buyers and, you know, being able to have that kind of status of being a homeowner.

And so these are a lot of resources that our community doesn't know about, but what we're doing is bringing them here so that we can have access to these resources. So again, it's this Saturday, and I hope that you all can join us and support our efforts. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Mayor and Council, that concludes the public speakers that are present. We'll now begin the Zoom speakers. When unmuted, please announce your name and the ward or neighborhood that you reside in within the City of Santa Ana for the record. first speaker, Vic D. Mendez. Please unmute and make your comments.

Hello, can you hear me? Yes. I'm sorry. Give me just a second, please, Jennifer. Okay. Item 42 on the midyear budget report i'm going to just rattle off some interesting statistics but they're all kind of interrelated disparate but interrelated 63 630 thousand dollars 636 000 gallons of water 127 million dollars in electrical expenses 30 percent of the bradley burns tax revenues received through 12 31 23 25 of the measure x funds received you 12 31 23. 70 of the estimated

made a hotel tax for FY24 and roughly 35 million margaritas. So what are all these? How are these all kind of related? That's what it would take to fund the workers' compensation shortfall from last year of $7 million. Just think of the magnitude of what it took to take care of that, yet we haven't done anything to date. That's just a lot of consumption, a lot of energy, and just a lot of revenue that we're losing. And things probably aren't going to get much better unless we do something today. With respect to the report itself, it's pretty obvious there's some softening of tax revenue.

Some of it, you know, it's kind of just national trends. They're just lower inflation. That's leading to lower prices and lower sales taxes. And people on a national basis just are spending less. And Santa Ana simply needs more revenue streams. We just can't afford to lose opportunities like we did with North Cape El Mercado. And I think we own all that. So the time to act on all this is now. Lastly, I just want to state that cost cutting is in vogue. According to a Wall Street Journal article 215204, many CFOs are making cost cutting measures against a backdrop of rising profits. San Antonio does not have rising revenue.

We have somewhat declined their stagnant revenues. and so I think we need to start looking at how best we can do more with less. I think we have a lot of opportunity, a lot of great potential, but we have to make the best use of what we have. Thank you and have a great meeting.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Next speaker, Tim Johnson, please unmute and make your comments.

Hi, good evening, Mayor, Council and City Manager Tim Johnson, Ward 3 here. A few items of interest for me tonight and hopefully for you all also. Agenda item number 11, I believe there are multiple regular residents in our community who would love to be able to provide more productive assistance to those who are struggling with housing and living on our streets. However, we are not always aware of what to do to best assist those who are willing to accept assistance. We get frustrated with the process, partly because we don't always know who to call, where to take someone, how to get someone quick and prompt help.

We also do not fully understand what we should expect from the city and county as it relates to services that are provided. We know that city resources are stretched thin and as such, there are folks out there who would like to partner with the city. I sincerely request that the city consider some sort of resident training for those who are wanting to be able to help those in need.

Not just a comm link presentation, which is great, by the way, but a true training program where residents can walk away as partners that work with both those in need and the services that the city and county have to provide to those on the streets and the goal of having real housing for folks. Remember, this is about relationships, and some of us regular folks develop those relationships.

On agenda item number 43, with regards to the budget, as you enter budget season, I sincerely urge you to consider setting aside some of our major X revenue, which I am part of the oversight committee, by the way, which amounts to over $85 million of revenue per year for the future sunset of this tax. tax. As a reminder, the voter approved 1.5% Measure X sales tax will be reduced down to 1% in a few years which will fly by. That will be likely a $30 million reduction of tax revenue to our city and we need to prepare for that drop in revenue now. By setting aside

some of this revenue for Measure X Sunset Stabilization Fund instead of spending it even on one-time expenditures, this will allow future council members and our residents to be better equipped to manage this significant drop of revenue. There is downward pressure on measure x revenue as the prior speaker indicated but presently that will be nothing compared to those to that one-third drop that we'll be seeing up in coming years finally on agenda item number seven public should be able to give comment before presentations are provided because the council and mayor may want to seek additional information from those public comments

second presentations should be provided to the public prior to the meeting as it may impact to those comments and third the city needs to press the county and cal optima on its ability or lack thereof to provide shelter and housing services services to those without documentation we know that those who are housed are less stressed on our health system and therefore it impacts heavily on cal optima it is my understanding there is at least one instance in the past week which may be impacted by this non-documentation hurdle that is it for me tonight and I thank you for Tim your time is up appreciate it have a nice next speaker

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Monica Tenorio please unmute and make your comment

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Monica Tenorio

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

»» Monica?

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Unfortunately, we can't hear her. That concludes the public speakers, Mayor.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 7

»» Thank you very much. At this time we're going to go to the Consent Calendar Items. Consent Calendar Items number 8 through 41 are before us. Councilmembers, please announce any items that you'll be abstaining from due to conflict. And if there are any requests to pull an item from the Consent Calendar for further discussion.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

Start with Councilman Hernandez. Any items you'd like to pull, abstain or be excused from, sir?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

Yes, Madam Mayor. I would like to have a comment on Item 21 as well as just Item 21 actually. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

Thank you. Councilman Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 8

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd like to pull Items 10, 11, 15 and 28.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

and 11 15 and 28 councilman Vasquez thank you councilmember Lopez I was

Jessie LopezItem 8

going to pull 28 and it's been pulled thank you

David PenalozaItem 8

councilman panel OSA Thank You mayor I'd like to pull items 34 and 38 Thank You

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

mayor Pro Tem nothing thank you and I'm gonna pull 28 as well 27 I just have a Actually, I have 27. I'm pulling 27 as well. Okay. That's it at this time. Can I get a motion?

David PenalozaItem 8

So moved. Second.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

Thank you. Let's prepare to vote, please.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

Point of clarification, Madam Clerk. Is item 35 on the agenda still?

Jennifer L. HallItem 8

No. Item 35 has been pulled. Okay.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON WONG.

Jennifer L. HallItem 8

The vote is 7 ayes, no nays. Motion carries to adopt the consent calendar with the exception of items number 10, 11, 15, 28, 27, 34, 38 pulled for separate discussion and item 35 which was removed from consideration. Motion carries.

CHAIRPERSON WONG.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

Thank you. Is the appointed member present here to administer the oath of office?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

Nathaniel Greensides, if you can come up please.

I, Nathaniel Greensides, do solemnly swear swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California, that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation

or purpose of evasion, that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 8

Thank you, Madam City Clerk.

Jennifer L. HallItem 8

Yes, Mayor, the first item pulled is item number 10, pulled by Councilmember Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 8

All right. Well, thank you. I'd like to ask a question. I see Executive Director Garcia here in the audience. I HAVE A QUESTION REGARDING THE INCLUSIONARY HOUSING AND LIEU FEES RECEIVED PER FISCAL YEAR CHART ON PAGE 7 OF THE STAFF REPORT. SO IN LOOKING AT IT, IN FISCAL YEAR 2021 WHEN THE WHO WAS REVISED TO JUMP START CONSTRUCTION BY LOWERING THE INCLUSIONARY FEE FROM $15 TO $5 A SQUARE FOOT, I SEE HERE IT SHOWS THE CITY COLLECTED 3.7 MILLION, RIGHT?

THAT'S CORRECT.

Phil BacerraItem 9

THEN IN FISCAL YEAR 21-22, PRIOR TO THE LAST REVISIONS OF THE WHO, THE CITY TOOK IN 6.9 MILLION, AND THAT'S REFLECTED HERE. THAT WAS BEFORE THE COUNCIL OR MEMBERS OF THIS COUNCIL, NOT THE FULL COUNCIL, MEMBERS OF THIS COUNCIL INCREASED THAT IN LIEU FEE BACK UP TO $15 A SQUARE FOOT. WHAT I'D LIKE TO KNOW IN LOOKING AT THIS IS I SEE IN FISCAL YEAR 23-24, A DOLLAR AMOUNT, $834,000, BUT WITH A BIG FAT ASTERISK NEXT TO IT. would you mind explaining what that's about?

Yes. This is for the met-elegado, and it's related to the development agreement that will be put into place for that proposed development.

Phil BacerraItem 9

And so when were the entitlements for that project approved?

I'm trying to remember, Jetson. Do you remember when the entitlements were approved by Planning Commission? Okay. I can get that response to you.

Phil BacerraItem 9

I guess it's fair to say it wasn't in 23, 24, 22, 23, and 21 or 22.

I'm trying to remember.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Judson is on his way up.

It's more of a min question planning.

Phil BacerraItem 9

I'll make it participatory here.

Based on the information I have, it was approved in the early 2000s.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Okay. So it wasn't recently. So we're showing this only because they're paying the fees for a project that was approved That was approved almost a decade ago.

Correct. More than a decade ago.

Phil BacerraItem 9

More than a decade ago. Okay. So those funds, that's not based on the $15 a square foot, is it?

That is correct. That is based on a development agreement that they had in place that was approved in 2012.

Phil BacerraItem 9

So that development agreement did not state that the ENLU fee would be calculated at $15 a square foot, correct?

That is correct.

Phil BacerraItem 9

And, Min, since you're up here, even under today's WHO, you would utilize the development agreement to not pay 15 afoot, right? In other words, if there was, I guess, a way to negotiate, that's what you would use to not pay what's been adopted as the 15 afoot, right?

The Municipal Code has a provision that would allow for the Council to consider an alternative way to comply with the WHO under development agreement.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. So I just, I guess when I looked at this, it left more questions than answers. So you put it in there with a big fat asterisk, it kind of begs, well, where did this money come from? Did somebody all of a sudden decide that they were going to pay 15 bucks a foot? But I guess, and correct me if I'm wrong, the answer is no, they're not paying $15 a foot because that would be cost prohibitive. So this money coming in has nothing to do with the current WHO, has everything to do with the development agreement that was negotiated over a decade ago.

GO. CORRECT.

Phil BacerraItem 9

PERFECT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. THAT'S ALL I HAVE AS FAR AS QUESTIONS GO. I JUST WANT TO SAY, YOU KNOW, I'M HAPPY TO SEE THAT IN THE REPORT THERE'S AN INCREASE IN APPROVED APPLICATIONS FOR THE DOWNPAYMENT ASSISTANCE PROGRAM FOR THE PURCHASE OF HOMES IN OUR CITY. WE'RE DOING SO MUCH MORE TO HELP OUR RESIDENTS WHEN IT COMES TO BECOMING HOMEOWNERS. You know, everybody pays a mortgage. It's a matter of whether they're going to pay their own and gain wealth or they're going to pay somebody else's and help them gain wealth. So I'm glad that we're doing that.

Phil BacerraItem 9

I'm glad that we're trying to get folks off of, you know, trying to wean them off of government subsidy and try to get them to be their own. I mean, I like the fact that we had a speaker earlier talk about a similar program for our indigenous population. I mean, it's something that across the board you want to see more of, which is home ownership. SO LAST THING I WANTED TO SAY ON THIS ITEM WAS THAT WE HAD, THIS IS KIND OF A WHILE BACK NOW, BUT THE CITY OF SAN ANA HAD RECEIVED A OCBC, ORANGE COUNTY BUSINESS COUNCIL AWARD. IT WAS A TURNING RED TAPE INTO RED CARPET AWARD BACK IN DECEMBER. AND I BELIEVE THIS REPORT COVERS DECEMBER.

Phil BacerraItem 9

BUT DIRECTOR GARCIA, YOU, JUDSON, MYSELF, AND A COUPLE OF US WERE THERE. OH, YEAH, AND COUNCIL MEMBER VASQUEZ AS WELL TO RECEIVE THAT AWARD. but again uh celebrating the success of the down payment assistance program so thank you to you and your staff and i believe madam clerk is this uh receiving file it is it is yes still requires action okay then i'll go ahead and move the item i'll second

Valerie AmezcuaItem 9

that's prepared to vote

Jennifer L. HallItem 9

VOTE OF 7 AYES, NO NAYS. MOTION CARRIES. THE NEXT ITEM, MAYOR, IS ITEM NUMBER 11, ALSO PULLED BY COUNCILMEMBER BESERA.

Phil BacerraItem 9

ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU. I SEE KEN GOMINSKI COMING UP TO THE HOT SEAT. THANK YOU, KEN. SO ACCORDING TO THE STAFF REPORT FOR THIS ITEM, IT SAYS, UPON REQUEST FROM THE CITY'S JAIL, City Nets case managers meet with homeless neighbors at the jail upon exit to develop a plan that will include services aimed to end the individual's homelessness. 42 people accepted service, which is great. I mean 42 people. We're seeing in other cities that have a similar program they're lucky if they're getting single digits. So the fact that we're getting 42 to accept that's wonderful. Three for substance abuse services. That's kind of sad given that

Phil BacerraItem 9

we'll probably see most of those folks are coming in for some sort of substance substance abuse arrest. And then I love this, one reconnection diversion services. So this is, and Ken, if you could help me on this one, this is the one-way home ticket, correct? Yes, sir, it is. So I know I'd see it on social media. There are a couple of people asking if we're still offering it. So Ken, I can confidently say that we are absolutely offering that option,

correct? We continue to offer the program if an individual is homeless and they are in and desirous of reconnecting with family in alternate locations, we will assist them in their reconnection.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Great. And then as far as those that, so when someone's arrested, they come into the jail, then we have CityNet that's offering them services upon their departure. Are we tracking those folks? Because I know obviously within our, I'm going to, whatever the system would be within Santa Ana PD to track people that are arrested, but is CityNet or I guess maybe City Community Development Agency, are we tracking those folks as they're leaving the jail to say we've offered them services, they refused, they accepted? Are we

doing any sort of tracking along those lines? So based on a tremendous partnership with the Santa Ana Police Department and most specifically the Santa Ana Jail, everyone who is released from the Santa Ana Jail is offered services, not just homeless individuals not just individuals brought in for use and influence or being drunk in public it is every single person who was brought into the Senate a jail is offered services at the time of intake subsequently if they wish to have though if they wish to have services then they talk to a another individual within the

jail who identifies what specific services they're interested in and then makes that call to city net to ensure that we have the right resource that responds to the jail to speak with that released individual if the individual said they weren't interested in services when they were booked but they've had a change of heart when they leave the city jail is again asking those individuals if they are interested in any services and if they are then then we make the call to CityNet at that point. But again, that's based on a really remarkable partnership with the Santa Ana jail.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Well, Ken, thank you for sharing that with everybody. I think it's important for everybody to know that when these folks are arrested, that it doesn't matter what their housing situation is. It does not matter. So, you know, we do talk a lot about, we have a homeless problem in Santa Ana, right? Cause we see folks out on the street. I'm gonna say right here, we don't have a homeless problem. We have a criminal problem.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Whether they have a lack of housing or they have an abundance of housing, whether they're in a three-piece suit or a burlap sack, we, at least I'll tell you, down in my ward on South Bristol, the folks that are hanging out at the bus stop that are shooting up, that are selling narcotics, I mean, Ken, correct me if I'm wrong, are those crimes?

Yes, sir, they are.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Okay. So it doesn't really matter. so when an officer sees that happening it's not really important whether they're houseless or not because they're committing a crime correct correct sir okay thank you for that but i i do appreciate what you said in that we are trying to help people regardless of their housing status and i hope that on the converse our police are enforcing the law regardless of their housing status so with that

Jessie LopezItem 9

thank you mayor thank you councilmember lopez yeah i just want to state that we absolutely have a homeless problem. Some of the kids that we were also happy to take pictures with from Willard, they live in cars. That is why they cannot afford to buy their ticket to fly to Washington DC. You just had indigenous people come into this chamber and speak about the indigenous Santa Ana residents that are about to be homeless or are homeless. We absolutely have a homeless issue. It's not one thing or the other, it's many different things piling on top of each other. So yes, I I would like the record to reflect that. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 9

Thank you. Can I have a couple questions? So the street outreach, I don't see anybody else wanting to speak, so I'll be the last one here. Street outreach, 181 street exits. So does that mean they were put into a housing program, family?

So a street exit equals anyone who left the street to any number of locations, right? It could be one of our shelters. It could be into detox or mental health. It could be to a hospital. It could be family reunification. It's any number of locations other than sleeping on that bus bench next to the building.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 9

So thank you for clarifying that. I ask those questions for the community and those that are watching at home because you and I have many conversations. So I'm aware of what it means. I just wanted the community to understand that. So community outreach you have 1,508 and then you have a whole part of your presentation here your handout and I don't know if it's available to the public I'm sure it's on the website correct? If it's not it will be. Okay perfect. Then how many clients you served and whatnot so all that information is here but the big question for me is and I know Judge Carter had reached out and

Valerie AmezcuaItem 9

asked me to walk with him during the point-in-time account and I was unable able to do we have those numbers mr city manager ken do we have those yet we do not yet we're

awaiting those numbers from the county of orange we're not expecting them until at least probably

Valerie AmezcuaItem 11

may is what we've heard and i heard that they were lower is that correct possibly i really

am not in a position to tell you whether they're lower or higher i can tell you that upon looking at the numbers for one half of the count they were lower and the other half of the count they were higher but i didn't get to see all of the numbers together it was just kind of some different

Valerie AmezcuaItem 11

snapshots that i observed great well i'm looking forward to those numbers in may so thank you they'll be really important for us to take a look at and evaluate for the city of santa ana and uh councilmember lopez thank you for sharing about willard i do want to be clear that i did meet with the principal and yes one student lives in his car with his family behind Santa Ana High School and that's one too many and so I am gonna work with her maybe we could help them with some housing get them off the street out of their car and provide them with some assistance and so I'm hoping I could

connect them with you yes ma'am I'll get with you and we can talk about thank you

Valerie AmezcuaItem 11

so very much I appreciate that and this is a receiving file item are there any Any other questions or comments?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

I'll move the item. I'll second.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 11

There you go, let's vote.

Jennifer L. HallItem 11

Votes is six ayes, no nays, with the noted absence of by-mayor Pro Tem Phan. AND MOTION CARRIES.

Jennifer L. HallItem 11

THE NEXT ITEM IS ITEM NUMBER 15. ALSO PULLED BY COUNCIL MEMBER BESERRA.

Phil BacerraItem 11

THANK YOU. SO THIS ITEM IS THE THE APPROVAL OF AN APPROPRIATION ADJUSTMENT AND AWARD A PURCHASE ORDER TO SAN ANA GUARANTEES CHEVROLET FOR EIGHT BLAZER SUVS. WHEN I BEGAN MY TENURE ON THE COUNCIL, I WOULD RARELY SEE PURCHASES LIKE THIS FROM BUSINESSES WITHIN OUR CITY, AT LEAST ON OUR COUNCIL AGENDAS. I WAS TOLD THAT IT WAS BECAUSE OF A LACK OF BIDS FROM SAN ANA BUSINESSES. TO ME, THAT MEANT THAT WE NEED TO DO MORE TO REACH OUT TO THESE BUSINESSES. AFTER PERSISTENT REQUESTS FROM MYSELF AND FROM SOME OF MY COLLEAGUES, INCLUDING COUNCILMEMBER PENALOZA AND MAYOR

Phil BacerraItem 15

mayor mesqua our city staff began that proactive outreach and lo and behold look what we've got so I want to thank director Saba for all of your work and all of your staff's work on this and for following through on that outreach because that's what we need bringing these items forward to us helps strengthen our city by shopping in our city so again thank you very much this is what we need to see more of on our agenda and for the other department heads in the audience and so please follow suit and do the same and so with that i'd like to go ahead and move this item

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

i'll make a second um along with a comment thank you mayor i just want to thank our public work staff for bringing this item to the council community development agency i'm so sorry i'm looking at the wrong item item 15 we are talking about the chevrolet guarantee motors apologies i want to thank you guys for keeping this purchase local this is going to stay in our economy it's in ward 3 council member lopez's district and i fully concur with council member becerra when i got on the council in 2020 i remember seeing our first purchase order and i remember pulling the item and

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

asking staff hey why aren't we purchasing local so i just also want to thank my colleagues for ensuring that we are we're encouraging our staff to purchase local i know council member lopez during her tenure here as well has been a profound advocate for making sure that we shop local so i just want to commend our staff thank you guys for bringing this i'm looking forward to seeing this

Thai Viet PhanItem 15

get approved thank you thank you director saba or maybe mr city manager my question is relating to the ev nature of the vehicles um are we looking to purchase only evs moving forward if we can

Thai Viet PhanItem 15

or this just happened to be evs

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Piotem, members of the City Council. The objective really is to go all EV, but not every purchase will be EV. We have to kind of mix it up or one for one because that's a state mandate right now. So when we have equipment that we are looking at replacing, then we do the EVs if we can, and then we do the gas-powered type equipment. And I just want to let you know that we are installing as many charging stations as possible, so when the EVs come, we want to be ready for those.

Thai Viet PhanItem 15

And do you know where we qualify for any federal funding or grants, things like that, for purchases of EVs?

We continue to look for opportunities. This particular purchase has AQMD funding coming to it, but also we are continuing applying through Edison and some other venues to install the EV stations. That's really the bottleneck for us.

Thai Viet PhanItem 15

Okay, great. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

BEFORE YOU LEAVE, ON THE CORNER OF 17th AND I THINK THAT'S LINCOLN, WE'RE PUTTING IN A CHARGING STATION, CORRECT? I JUST WANT TO BE CLEAR ON THAT. I KNOW IT'S SEPARATE BUT I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT. IT'S ROVE. OH, IT'S ROVE.

YES.

Thai Viet PhanItem 15

OKAY. THAT'S GREAT. THANK YOU. YOU'RE WELCOME. ROVE AND GELSIN'S COMBINING TO CREATE A FIRST CLASS FIRST OF ITS KIND CHARGING LOCATION. THERE YOU GO. THANK YOU.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

OKAY. ALL RIGHT. GO AHEAD, MADAM CLARKE.

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

item 15 moved by councilmember becerra seconded by councilmember hernandez let's prepare to vote

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

please

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

vote of seven eyes no nays motion carries mayor the next item is item 21 that councilmember

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

hernandez requested to comment on uh thank you madam clerk i just want to thank our my councils here on the city council for approving this agreement today item 21 we approved an agreement with working wardrobes to provide workforce development services to unemployed people with barriers to employment barriers to employment could look like a lot of different challenges it could be a matter of not having you know assistance with right to work documents that you need it could be having just gotten out of jail juvenile holler prison working wardrobes is a

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

fantastic organization that has a long standing history of serving residents of orange county today we approved a grant in the amount of 742 000 and this is for a term commencing february 6 2024 and expiring december 31st 2025. thank you colleagues for ensuring that we are expanding our services to people with barriers to employment thank you so I just have a

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

comment and then we can make a motion and vote on it so working so I'm sorry did you move it in second it was already approved me oh you weren't done I

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

apologize yes my apologies I just pulled this item for a comment oh did you yes okay okay because I had asked initially just a comment but if there is no motion

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

I'll place item 21 I did I said I'm adding it to my list okay I had you

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

pulling item 27. no i'm 21 but i just want to make a comment okay we're good i also want to say thank

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

you working wardrobe is a wonderful organization they do so much as councilman hernandez was just sharing and i can share more but he covered most of it but i do want to share that they will help anybody anybody that you know in the community that needs their assistance please do not hesitate to reach out they have a store in garden grove on the harbor and palm i think the street is right there by Garden Grove Hospital. Every Monday it's a dollar Monday you could go in there and buy specials for a dollar. They have men's suits, they have women's clothing. I'd ask somebody to get up

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

and show us what she has on because usually all her clothes is from Working Wardrobe. And so we go there all the time. I shop there and I will tell you that it is a fantastic place, a fantastic organization, and they help so many people in the community. So if you haven't been in by a store please go by and please purchase clothes and items from them so thank you

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

okay mayor so for clarification item 27 was not pulled yeah i pulled two oh okay then we're on to item 27.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

so um mr city manager on this item i just have a question for you so i was reading the information and there are some boards commissions that have never met or don't meet they don't reach a quorum and then we have some vacancies on some can we please make an effort to get those vacancies filled and then if we look at some boards have never met why do we have them because that takes time from staff and that's the notes and I mean it's just it's a lot of work for city staff and just to show up and then like oh we don't have a quorum so we're gonna to council and they're usually after 5 p.m. so again our staff are staying and

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

then you have members that are on some of the Commission's that do show up and then when they don't have a quorum you know they go home so I just would like us to look into all of the Commission's that we have and to see where we're missing people reach out to the council members or myself for that I know I need to put one on the rental commission i think it's the rental commission um but if we can do that please that way we can save time for staff and get these vacancies filled and then do we need them all i guess is the other question and i would leave that up to you and then the emt team

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

madam mayor we'll do that thank you thank you so much no other comments

Phil BacerraItem 15

mayor real quick i just want to um i guess make a request out loud and that is our youth commission Director Scott, how many times has it met, the Youth Commission met this year? One time? This year or last year?

Zero.

Phil BacerraItem 15

And then last year? One time. So I just feel like we're cheating our youth of an experience. And so what I'd like to ask is if for some reason we can't get a quorum of the Youth Commission, is there a way to, I guess, because the idea is to solicit their input on a variety of things. And so is there a way to convene them? maybe it's not as an official action of the youth commission but i just feel like i can tell you right now i'd like to have my appointee be able to participate in something and i know those of my colleagues who have um appointees that are you know actually wanting to attend a meeting

to participate so what can we do to help them like i said we always you know pull out the calls we are currently missing three um so i know city clerks work with you guys to get them filled we have thrown out the idea of what we did with our senior commission maybe a point two and add them to our parks and rec commission uh the two steamers we have had have done really well so far so that is an option we can do but again to get you know seven kids here at you know 4 35 36 sometimes is a struggle and that's why we haven't met we haven't met quorum okay is there um no i

Phil BacerraItem 15

was just going to say that you know i know that covid put a big dent in participation but prior to covid we had plenty of youth commission meetings so i'm not sure what seems to be the difference today versus pre-covid but um yeah i would be open to other suggestions as far as participation and if you you and city manager would like to bring some of those forward i'd be happy to i think the council would like to see them but i just at this point i just feel bad for those that are eager to participate and eager to show up that you know aren't able to because of

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

a lack of quorum okay can we go into the community and have them either in our rec centers or our high schools contact center and unified and have them so they can maybe walk it's closer to them give me the water I mean anything's possible yes I'd like you to look at that as well going to the community centers and we're providing a bus pass or whatever we need to do to get them to participate it's important

okay thank you all right thank you you push the button here thank you

David PenalozaItem 15

Councilman Panalosa. Thank you Mayor. If you want to go first go ahead. Thank you Hawk. The only comment I had is in regards to, I know we recently raised the stipend amount that we provided the commissions. I'm not sure if that's gone into full effect yet but I know that that's something that we've been unanimously talking about over the last year. for the Youth Commission from what I recall that was also increased correct

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

council member yes so the resolution was adopted in December and it was retroactive to July 1st of 2023 that has been communicated to the board and commission secretary liaisons so they can start inputting that payroll information for their members as well as any retro pay that they might be meeting

David PenalozaItem 15

Okay, because if I'm not mistaken, I think the direction was to double the amount from 50 to 100, but I believe the Youth Commission was only 25. Did that one get doubled to 50 or was it also put to 100?

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

My recollection is that the resolution was for all of the boards and commissions. All of them, correct? To $100.

David PenalozaItem 15

Okay. And is the Youth Commission, do they have the, can they meet via Zoom or is it in-person only?

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

At this point in time, it is in-person only. As a Brown Act body, they are, they have to follow the same rules that you all have to follow. So they could do just cause or emergency provisions, but otherwise they do have to do in-person meetings. Unless, as Hawk was mentioning, one of the options would be to dissolve the Youth Commission. A potential is to make a youth committee more run by staff, not necessarily appointed by council members. Then they could meet via Zoom.

David PenalozaItem 15

And Madam City Attorney, is there any exception to that that we can make as a body for the Youth Commission since they are mainly underage, probably don't have access to a car or transportation or parents work or whatnot, and cannot get here for a meeting in person that we could make? Not sure if that is, there's any wiggle room?

Yeah, unfortunately, any group that is defined as a legislative body under the Brown Act must follow the state rules and laws. So the city has no authority to make that change because the way they are formed, they do qualify as a legislative body under the Brown Act. But I think the staff suggestion that was just noted to function more as a committee that is not a Brown Act body would be the solution.

David PenalozaItem 15

And that's something that would have to be agendized for future discussion or is that something that staff could bring back for us to deliberate on?

Well, if you were to give staff, if the City Council takes formal action and creates this committee, it's through that action that you potentially are creating a Brown Act committee or legislative body. You could give direction to staff and staff could come back to you and say, hey, we have intentions to form a youth committee and we will be doing this and you know we could ask you for recommendations as to who we should work with and that would be the best way to do it so you could ask for staff to come back with some ideas on how to form a committee and we can do that tonight

David PenalozaItem 15

okay well you can get i know this is just about vacancies and attendance records so i don't

it can't right right but i think staff's listening and we could we could take make note of that

David PenalozaItem 15

work okay well I would move to to receive and file this report with that direction if we can another suggestion that I have mr. city manager I know that in the past we've had numerous different things that we would like to see advertised it goes back to the 2020 census budget meetings and we've allocated a monetary in the budget a line item for social media advertising purposes for these types of things if there's I'm not sure if we did that for

David PenalozaItem 15

this past budget it was it was a minor amount it was like 50 to 25 thousand for just promotional advertising on social media I know that we've all shared put out put the word out there that there's vacancies in these various commissions COMMISSIONS, BUT IF CITY STAFF COULD HELP ON THAT END. I KNOW IT'S MORE THE CLERK'S OFFICE BECAUSE IT IS COMMISSIONS, BUT I KNOW THAT WE COULD HELP PROMOTE THAT, PUT DOLLARS BEHIND IT ON SOCIAL MEDIA SO THAT IT COULD BE ON TOP OF JUST PEOPLE'S FEEDS AND BE CONSTANTLY ADVERTISED OUT THERE. THAT'S MY SUGGESTIONS. BUT THAT'S THE MOTION.

David PenalozaItem 15

I WILL MOVE TO RECEIVE AND FILE WITH THAT DIRECTION TO SEE WHAT WE COULD EVOLVE THIS INTO.

Benjamin VazquezItem 15

I second with a comment. Mr. City Manager you got that. Thank you. Councilman Vasquez. Thank you so much. When it comes to organizing youth and I've seen it with many groups the lack of transportation for our students is lacking so there's some way we could us drive them pick them up and drop them off that's a bit that's a heavy load for any parent to initially bring him and then be and then they'd be able to go two hours later three hours later to take him home and And I've seen the organization take 20 kids and take two hours to drop off their organizing youth at night when they're all working together.

Benjamin VazquezItem 15

So if we're going to really say we're going to have a youth commission, we have to have transportation for them to get to the meeting and go home. And then we will for sure have more folks attending. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

so with that I would just say if you can come back to us and I think you clearly need to check with the city attorney regarding transportation because that is not something that we offer due to a multitude of reasons or we can offer but there's a multitude of reasons why we do not offer that and so you can come back with some mr. city manager as well with you know whether we offer it in the evening and there is social media go out to them I miss anything we're posting it all over paul does a great job he can put it all over our social media that you know we're looking

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

for commissioners but not just youth commissioners but any any vacancies any of our commissions so thank you very much we really appreciate it you got it prepared to vote a motion by councilmember

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

penalosa seconded by councilmember vasquez to receive and file the boards and commissions biannual attendance report for june through december 2023 and direct staff to return with with options particularly related to the Youth Commission.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

Vote is seven ayes, no nays. Motion carries.

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

Next item is item number 28, originally pulled by Council Member Becerra, but then also Council Member Lopez and Mayor Meskweth.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

Please push your button to speak so I can find you here, Council Member Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 15

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I have a few questions, Director Garcia. On page two, the staff report states, quote, a comprehensive marketing strategy ensured widespread awareness of the RFP. By the way, before I continue, this item is the requesting for the council to approve an addendum to the fiscal year 23-24 request for proposals for affordable home ownership opportunities. So as I was saying that the staff report said that a comprehensive marketing strategy

Phil BacerraItem 15

WIDESPREAD AWARENESS OF THE RP. THIS INCLUDED PUBLICATION ON THE CITY'S OFFICIAL WEBSITE, A PUBLIC NOTICE IN THE OC REGISTER AND TARGETED EMAILS TO AFFORDABLE HOUSING MEMBERSHIP ASSOCIATIONS SUCH AS THE CANDY COMMISSION, 211 OC AND THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF NONPROFIT HOUSING. SO SINCE YOU SPECIFICALLY STATE THAT CONTACT WAS MADE TO THESE ASSOCIATIONS THROUGH TARGETED EMAILS, I HAVE TO ASK, WAS THERE ALSO PHONE CALLS MADE? WAS THERE ANY ATTEMPTS TO MAKE THOSE MESSAGES? to meet with these folks because I would have expected to see, we called them, we met with them, and we got certain input, but only thing I heard,

Phil BacerraItem 15

or only thing I read on there was targeted emails, so.

We did conduct phone calls, both Judson Brown and myself, with different developers that we've worked with in the past and that have submitted in the past. We even had subsequent emails that have been going back and forth. And the addendum is part of that. There was a response from, so just to bring the public up to speed on RFP 23-156, following the October 17th council approval, we issued the RFP. We only got one response because it was strictly for affordable home ownership.

But it was on one of our properties that the housing authority owns and needs to include in a development. So we're happy that we did receive that response. During that timeframe until December 15th, we received a lot of phone calls from developers who wanted to go and work on projects that maybe are in the Townsend neighborhood, that maybe are on First Street between Grand and the 5 Freeway. And so the addendum that is being brought for consideration is to include an additional list of properties that the city owns or that are multifamily that maybe could be affordable multifamily rental affordable.

Phil BacerraItem 15

Okay. Well, thank you for that. In fact, you kind of jumped ahead into my question. So I get why we would list specific city properties, right? Like in the staff report, it shows some of the surplus properties along Bristol that the city owns. But when I see these five areas targeted, now if we're complaining or concerned that we're not getting enough proposals in, why would we say, okay, well, 27 square miles, let's shrink it down to five specific areas?

These are specific areas that have come out of not only community requests. We've been having monthly meetings with KidsWorks. Also, from hearing from the city council to focus some attention on maybe some motel conversions on First Street. So we wanted to include specific areas, the Cornerstone Village, Cedar Evergreen. So we wanted to focus on some areas that have had historic issues and some of the kind of densely populated apartment products within our city. But it could be anywhere within the city. We just wanted to focus on development.

Phil BacerraItem 15

but i guess i guess what i'm trying to understand is so you're having problems attracting proposals so then you put something in there that says we're going to limit you i feel very i feel like it's very counterintuitive right you normally would say well we're in a specific area oh goodness we're not getting enough for this specific area let's expand it but somehow you've defied conventional

wisdom and said let's restrict it well the rfp addendum allows any property that a developer that developers would like to work on, whether it's an acquisition rehab or vacant lot to submit. But we did want to target specific areas where we could focus the developers' attention during this RFP addendum.

Phil BacerraItem 15

Male Speaker 1, Okay. Well, it's good to know. I'm glad you said that to the community that it is not just limited to those areas. Male Speaker 2, No. Male Speaker 1, You know, to me, I look at what we had tonight with Guaranty Chevrolet. and the fact that, you know, we're looking at an addendum because you're saying, well, we're not getting enough submittals for an RFP for home ownership opportunities. So we're just saying, and we'll give up and just go open it wide. You've heard over and over tonight how important it is for our community to develop more home ownership opportunities. This item frustrates me because

Phil BacerraItem 15

it's almost like what we saw Public Works doing before where they just said, well, we put it out there and gosh golly gee nobody showed up and asked us to do anything maybe instead staff could do a little more proactive research like i noticed the bia is not part of this the bia actually represents builders and a lot of builders including warmington who's traditionally a market rate builder just got a project approved off of lion where they included affordable units for sale home ownership opportunities so for me i look at this when i see targeted emails and i'm relieved

Phil BacerraItem 15

to hear that it isn't just targeted emails but what i would ask that instead of us approving this addendum tonight to lower the bar maybe perhaps instead we give your staff some more time kind of like what happened with public works right they they had a little more time they were able to go out and actually attract businesses from within san anna to respond to the rfp so maybe we should do that for you tonight instead of just saying well we're going to give up on home ownership with these home funds, maybe instead, I mean, because there's not a restriction on time, right? I mean, they're not going on forever,

Phil BacerraItem 15

but it just seems like we're real quick to rush and say, well, we give up on ownership opportunities. We've got to go right back to rental. I think we can all agree. We have plenty of affordable rentals in the city. We are really in need of affordable home ownership opportunities. So I would ask my colleagues to consider or maybe having staff come back to us in six months after reaching out to builders the bia in addition to the traditional affordable home builders and come back to us with a status update as to how they progressed and then maybe we can consider an addendum but just to give up so

Phil BacerraItem 15

quickly on the component of home ownership especially after we were just talking about your department and the success it's having with the down payment assistance program and then it's kind of like a duality you come back to us and all of a sudden you're saying well by the way we need to give up on the home ownership opportunities it just i will give a little more background there

are um specifically at first in euclid 10th and bristol and at bristol and pine there are specific single family lot developments that would be perfect for duplex or single family detached affordable home ownership and we so we put that april first what i might suggest the council is that maybe we do an initial review of rfp responses on april 1st and if we have some we can continue to move forward with those uh those and then almost like an open until filled type of process like but the initial like you do with a recruitment sometimes for personnel you'll do a

open until filled with an initial review of responses on april 1st that way housing can move forward with any responses that do come in we are aware of a few other uh um uh developers that are looking at first between grand and and and the five we went on we don't want to slow that down and there was some other uh interest in the townsend neighborhood uh near mcfadden and rate so maybe if we can do that uh adjustment we can change it from a due date of april 1st

uh 2024 to initial review on april 1st and open until you know almost like uh you know could be subject to uh having a final deadline of submitting on the rfp 23-156 addendum within six months or

Phil BacerraItem 15

i would support that but again focusing on the home ownership component not not to stray from that but to stay focused on that because that's what you started off with i want to see you

successful on that absolutely absolutely so with that thank you for the motion

Jessie LopezItem 15

okay concern Lopez yeah thank you so I appreciate the effort that you just talked about Mike and reaching out to folks we can't force right developer or an organization to commit to a project that they don't think is gonna pencil out for them we know that very well so I'm supportive of the item I will be supporting it tonight I don't think that supporting the item means that we're giving up on home ownership we're not in the 70s we can't buy a house for a hundred thousand dollars most of us are not gonna inherit a home and as we all

Jessie LopezItem 15

know the federal minimum wage hasn't kept up with the pace of inflation either so a lot of people still don't make enough right when we talk about our the down payment assistance, the number one issue is can people get loans from a bank, right? Our staff know that very well. You do this program in and out. And so when I hear of friends embarking on this journey, you know, they're competing with corporations. Corporations that buy single-family homes, use them as rentals, Airbnbs, party houses, and that's it. Then the house stays empty for the week until somebody else rents it out.

Jessie LopezItem 15

So a lot of young families cannot compete with the corporation, they cannot engage in the bidding wars that are happening when trying to buy a first home and also a lot of people for whatever reason or not we don't have to agree, the public doesn't have to agree, but some people have just said I don't want to buy a home, you know, it's easier for me to rent, it's less of a hassle, whatever, it depends on people's lifestyles. So I think it's important THAT WE HAVE AFFORDABLE HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES AND OPTIONS FOR OUR CONSTITUENTS BECAUSE THEY CONSISTENTLY AT LEAST WHAT I HEAR FROM THEM IS THAT THAT IS WHAT THEY NEED AND THAT IS WHAT

Jessie LopezItem 15

THEY WANT IN ORDER TO SAVE FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP IF THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE LOOKING FOR. SO I WANT YOU TO BE VERY AWARE OF THE NEXT COMMENTS BECAUSE IT RELAYS TO THE ITEM ITSELF. I'M HAPPY YOU KNOW MOVING IN THIS DIRECTION FREING UP THE MONEY but I want staff to be very cautious about any corporations coming in and buying and kicking people out of their homes, as we've seen in other jurisdictions happen, if not outright banning the practice, and at the very least making sure that they understand that they will severely be penalized if they are doing that, if they are engaging that, and if we find out that they are, as I said, doing that.

Jessie LopezItem 15

And then on exhibit two, to your point of adding properties, I would like for you to expand the hotel conversion area all the way down to the 55. I think that there are some properties, and I've heard you talk about some of them, that could be great opportunities for the city. We're talking about how do we bring in more money, right? A tax base is one of those options for the city. So that's what I would like to see. I'll make a motion to approve this item with the two caveats that I just gave you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

I'll make a second with a comment.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

Council Member Hernandez. Thank you, Madam Mayor. First and foremost, thank you, Michael Garcia, for the presentation, for answering my colleagues' questions. You're appreciated. We appreciate the good work that Community Development Agency is doing. What I really want to applaud is the five target areas that you guys are focusing efforts on. For one, all of us know that the First Street Hotel conversion is important to all of us. We see the impacts that it has on neighborhoods and the quality of life. I think that as we've developed housing, as we have assisted the corridor closest to the zoo,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

I think it is important that we expand past the 55 so that we can address the issue of people experiencing homelessness along First Street. I also think it's important for us to pay attention to what is happening alongside Harbor. Harbor is a corridor that myself and council member fan share and there's also hotels alongside Harbor bless you there is a lot of hardship there it's very similar to first Street so I would also implore that we are inclusive of Harbor Street I'm very happy to see Townsend and rate attachment six of exhibit two is included that is a part of the district that council member

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

Vasquez and I share close to Jerome Park it has been a very densely populated area for as long as it's existed many of those residents who live in the apartments have lived there 20 plus years so I think that that's a great opportunity for them furthermore I'm also very ecstatic about the 1900 to 2000 West Myrtle Street attachment 8 of exhibit 2 that is in Ward 5 we have Friendship Park which will be unveiled in the next couple of weeks we also have a new bike trail thanks to the office of supervisor Vicente Sarmiento so there's a lot of good that is happening in the area i just wanted to take this time to applaud the efforts

Phil BacerraItem 15

that you guys brought to us today thank you councilman becerra thank you madam mayor and i i appreciate some of the comments i heard from some of my colleagues but um i'm not sure we're still talking about the same item if we're still talking about this item um first thing is is that i believe director garcia mentioned that even though we're talking about five focus areas there's no need to to expand them because if somebody comes in with an application for these funds, we're not going to say that, or I'm sorry, staff is not going to reject them because they're not within these five stated areas. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Phil BacerraItem 15

Okay. And then also, too, if we're talking about trying to generate some economic activity, how much tax do affordable homes generate?

They do not generate tax. So zero, right? Property tax. That's correct.

Phil BacerraItem 15

Okay. Okay, we want to provide affordable home ownership opportunities because we want to empower residents to start building generational wealth. But I just want to clarify that it's not an economic opportunity, correct?

That's correct.

Phil BacerraItem 15

Okay, so I'll be going ahead and submitting to my colleagues a sub-motion that eliminates the rental component for now. AND THAT WE AS DIRECTOR GARCIA SUGGESTED EARLIER THAT WE GO AHEAD AND KEEP THIS APPLICATION PROCESS OPEN WITH PERIODIC STATUS UPDATES FROM CDA. THAT'S MY MOTION.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

NEW SPEAKER I'LL SECOND. AND THANK YOU, MIKE, FOR THIS PRESENTATION. I REALLY APPRECIATE IT. I KNOW I'VE MET WITH YOU AND YOUR STAFF MANY TIMES AND WE'VE HAD CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE FIRST TIME HOME BUYER PROGRAM THAT THE CITY HAS. and so and you've met with some community members and we've done some events out in the community and I know you guys are doing them I believe every month now to help people purchase a home in our city which is wonderful so thank you with our first time home buyer program because yes not everybody wants to own a home but there are quite a few people who do want to own a home and we

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

We understand the importance of that. And so if you can and they want to, it's good that we can help them. And since I've been elected, I know that First Street, as you know, you hear from me all the time, and down in Bristol has been a priority for me, especially down First Street. We have those apartments by the zoo. We have children there. And so I'm happy to see that we are working on First Street. And with the police department, thank you, and with Colt, you guys have really made a difference down there. I know with probation I get the emails all the time, all the arrest and things. So, Chief, thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

But I'm going to support Council Member Becerra's amendment because I think it's important that we go back and look at it. It's not just about rental. It's about home purchases, right? And so, again, we've had many meetings about that. I know you meet with all the council members for different reasons. But for me as a mom, my son purchased his first home and not because I did it for him because I'm not a Kardashian. He worked. He worked hard and he saved every penny and he bought a condo and that's his starter home. And his goal is to live there for a few years and then buy a home when he gets married and has his family.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

So that's what we want to teach young people if that's their goal is to start somewhere, right? So I know that we've talked about the purchase of condos. The first time a home buyer program, with the amount of money that we give them, they have the ability to purchase a condo in our city. And I think that's wonderful. So I'm supporting that because we do have a lot of rental properties. Can I agree that we probably need more? Yes. But I always hear up here how it's kind of like the Boba De Sito, you know, feel bad, they can't do it, they can't do it, they can't. If we keep saying that, then people believe that.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

I believe if people want to own a home, they can. and they can work hard and they will and if they want to rent for their whole life they will and that's that's their choice but we have to look at the city and where are we going to be five years from now ten years from now are we gonna look like Los Angeles or other cities that were just purely tall apartment buildings because that's what we've done to ourselves I hope not so I'm gonna support councilman Becerra's amended motion and at that time madam clerk I I don't see anybody else wanting to speak. I'm sorry. It's not here. So hold on one second.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

Can you take down my voting, Madam Clerk? I can't get his.

Benjamin VazquezItem 15

Councilman Vasquez, go ahead. Thank you so much. I just want to support Councilmember Lopez on her comments and that we do need rental places for our families. They're bleeding. There's so many. the rent has gone up is really high in Santa Ana and families are sharing they're not doubling up anymore they're triple and four families per house and they want to have their own apartment to rent it's very hard it wasn't when my mom and dad decided to buy their hurt their first house my mom turned to my

Benjamin VazquezItem 15

dad let's buy a house my dad was in labors but he had his only job and he with six kids. My mom didn't work. We were able to buy a house on Maple Street, Benedictor. That's impossible for that job, for a young man of 28, 29, to be able to buy a house now. Those things are impossible. Those families can barely live in that house alone that my parents bought. That's why we need these rental places that are affordable so families are safe and don't have to rent out to other people when you rent out to other folks who may be strangers that's unsafe for the children that's unsafe for the family and they have gone families have now

Benjamin VazquezItem 15

gone in san anna from not doubling up families i'm saying so that's why i'm going to support uh this item thank you as is madam clerk go ahead mayor pro tem fan buzzed in

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

I'm so sorry to see you. It's not here. I apologize. Again, this is not working. So there's no speakers here. Go ahead, Mayor Parchment.

Thai Viet PhanItem 15

Thank you. I have a question for you, Director Garcia.

Thai Viet PhanItem 15

So I can see Council Member Becerra's request to, okay, let's go out, see what else we can do, maybe do more outreach and things like that. Is there anything detrimental to that process from staff's perspective?

Not really. You know, one of the reasons for the addendum is that we were hearing about hotel conversions and Project Homekey funding. Those are not available for homeownership. And so all of the hotels on Harbor, all of the hotel FERS that would be included, we would have to probably, well, we could leave them in there. Maybe somebody would be willing to buy them, but it wouldn't be with Project Homekey funding. Those are the ones that we were thinking, that's why we changed it strictly from homeownership to allow it for affordable home ownership and for rental for affordable

Thai Viet PhanItem 15

so right so I only asked because you know if there's no current detrimental issue and it's like hey let's go redouble our efforts and see what we can do then we can say hey we tried everything it's not something that's working here in the city so I am inclined to do that now the question with project home key and whatnot in these types of hotel conversions I Obviously, Harbor, I'm very familiar. I used to walk down Harbor to go to my friend's house all the time. You kind of avoid certain sides of the street when you have to when you're a 12-year-old girl. But I guess my question with Project Homekey is,

Thai Viet PhanItem 15

is there a deadline that we're looking at for potential developers who would come in and use Project Homekey to redevelop those areas?

They do have an open funding that closes in June, correct? Yeah.

Thai Viet PhanItem 15

Okay. Okay. And so, you know, I've heard about some of these programs being very successful in different areas to get rid of these seedy motels and really help to revitalize the area. And it's different, right, because seedy hotels, they may be, but they also pay property taxes and bring in TOT. So that's a balance we have to consider. consider. But I think at this point, that concludes my questions. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

Thank you, Mike. Very much appreciate it. I don't see any other speakers. Madam Clerk?

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

Thank you, Mayor. This is the substitute motion by Councilmember Becerra, seconded by Mayor Emeskwa, to approve the addendum, but with the removal of the rental component and to keep the The response deadline open with status updates by staff.

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

The vote is four ayes, three nays. Nays by Council Members Hernandez, Lopez, and Vasquez. Motion carries.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 15

Thank you, Mayor. Next one.

Jennifer L. HallItem 15

Yes, Mayor. The next item is item number 34, pulled by Council Member Penalosa.

David PenalozaItem 15

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Mayor Dallark and thank you Mayor Emescuah. Item 34 is to award a blanket order contracts to Curley Hostel Electric and Walters Hostel Electric for street lighting pools and materials in the amount not to exceed $2.5 million.

David PenalozaItem 34

First off, city staff and city manager, I want to thank our public works director and everybody for awarding this to a Santa Ana vendor. We've had that conversation already before tonight and just happy to see that. why i pulled it was and and i i should have brought this up and asked during my agenda review and shame on me for not doing so but i i know that i've brought up this question to you director saba over the past couple of months of the timeline on replacing these street pulls along main street specifically throughout the whole city but specifically main street are the ones i

David PenalozaItem 34

asked you about that have been taken out by by car accidents and collisions it's been now over a year and they're still not replaced, this will obviously help expedite that, correct?

Absolutely. This is the purpose of stocking these streetlights, and we will be ready to replace them as they get hit, basically.

David PenalozaItem 34

Okay. Now, $2.5 million is a lot of money from our general fund and non-general fund. The question I have now is, is are we, through city attorney's office or whoever we need to, going after the insurance companies of these cars that take out these poles, because that is property damage. And I know that at least my car insurance, I have that available, right? God forbid something happens, you know, I could use my insurance to pay for it. So are we?

We absolutely do. Every time there's an accident, we do reach out to risk management and we file a report. And risk management from that point takes a charge of the claim itself and for the recovery of the damages.

David PenalozaItem 34

Male Speaker 1 Now, in the past, let's just say a year or two, how many have we been able to, because I haven't ever, I've never seen that before where we get a notice from, and I know it's probably small amounts that we don't need to know about. But, you know, if a light pole costs, how much does a light pole cost on Main Street? One of those nice historic ones that you guys-

Those are expensive ones. I don't know exactly, but I want to say between 25,000 to 30,000 apiece.

David PenalozaItem 34

Okay. So have we gone after, filed a claim with the motorist insurance about recovering that $25,000 damage to the street pole?

I want to say yes, but I'll have to double check specifically with risk management.

David PenalozaItem 34

Okay. Now, over the last year or two, have we received any funding, any money back, a check from Austin Insurance or State Farms or Adriana's Insurance, which I doubt.

Good question. Again, I need to really refer to risk management because we don't specifically track how much money comes in after a claim is settled or paid. So I really need to reach out to risk management and find out how we are recovering these type of claims.

David PenalozaItem 34

Male Speaker 1 Okay. And I think, Tom, you had a comment?

Tom Nguyen Yes, Councilmember, we could look into that and obtain that information from our risk management division and provide that to you.

David PenalozaItem 34

Male Speaker 1 Okay, I think that's important because many of these are taken out by distracted drivers. I mean, that's, you know, racing on Main Street, drunk drivers, all of the above. For whatever reason, they crash and take out our light poles, and we should be pursuing those damages through their insurance.

I completely agree with you, and not only streetlights, but also bus shelters, trash cans, and many other things that they hit.

David PenalozaItem 34

Okay. So those are my comments, and I hope we can get that information from risk management sooner than later. But with that, I will make a motion to approve item 34. for second second let's prepare to vote

Jennifer L. HallItem 34

the vote is seven ayes no nays motion carries mayor the next item is item number 38 also pulled by councilmember Penaloza thank you thank you madam clerk

David PenalozaItem 34

and madam mayor item 38 is the approval of an agreement with bean sprouts at the Santa Anna Zoo more specifically the sell of alcohol beer and wine at our zoo which is something that I know that I had been working with Ethan Fisher and our previous uh parks and recs director lisa about not necessarily just alcohol but the idea of increasing revenue uh not just at our zoo but throughout the city different sources of revenue

David PenalozaItem 38

that we could tap into that's not necessarily another tax on our residents so i'm happy to see this before us i know it's been years and years in the making um i know we tried awarding uh or or pursuing this vendor at one point a couple years ago but for whatever reason it fell I KNOW THAT THE AMOUNT, THE REVENUE SHARE IS PROBABLY NOT THE HIGHEST AND I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO HAVE SEEN THAT HIGHER, WHICH ISN'T WHAT THIS IS ABOUT. I'M JUST HAPPY THAT WE'RE FINALLY AT THIS STAGE IN THE PROCESS TO BE ABLE TO HAVE THAT, YOU KNOW, ALTHOUGH SMALL, YOU KNOW, IT'S STILL REVENUE, RIGHT, THAT WE COULD USE TO FILL

David PenalozaItem 38

IN SOME OF THAT ZOO FUNDING. the question I have is in the agreement I was going through it and we don't at least if I missed it please let me know but we didn't specify any requirement to have require Santa Ana brewing Brewers Santa Ana beer companies I know that we have many brewers and companies in the city that have great beer and we don't have that in the requirement and i know that we when we had this conversation you know four years

David PenalozaItem 38

ago we talked about that is having making sure that it's a santa and a vendor that's in there selling beer and wine is there is there a way that we could add that to the agreement now we can that that could be a requirement or is that something you have to we could definitely

look into it i know with abc there are restrictions and rules what you can do i know uh um deputy director fisher did say a couple years ago they tried to do that with a non-vendor but they wouldn't allow them to sell by themselves because they didn't own the kitchen was run by someone else so it's something we could look into but again this is a new adventure we're trying and again we can look at options and maybe there is a thing where beans routes can work with a local brewery to sell their type of revenue and they create some type of deal like our deal is their

total revenue depending on what the shares are so and it's in a three tier okay because i i know

David PenalozaItem 38

that i would i would love it's it's it's a plus right if we could also get some of that revenue sharing but at the same time be able to support a local business in santa ana uh there's like i said great brewing companies in the city that would be a plus for me so i i would uh make a motion to move forward to approve this item with that caveat that we uh require them to pursue uh and use santa anna vendors when it comes to their beer and alcohol i'll second um the the other comment i i had is in the agreement as well there was a and i forget which section it was but there was

David PenalozaItem 38

it was stated that city staff or the city of santa ana would essentially designate areas of the zoo where alcohol consumption is allowed and i've been to san diego zoo i've been to sea world i've been into LA Zoo and when you buy a beer, you know, $20 a beer, you expect that, right? And you expect to just walk around the whole park with it. I would hate to go through this process and then show up at Santa Ana Zoo and say, oh, we could only have it under these umbrellas in front of the concession stands. Is that what's going to happen here? No, it's something we'll work with

ABC and they'll do what's called like the red line and that's what it's drawn and you got to meet special requirements and that's for sun alcohol anywhere. So yeah, I'll definitely get back to on that and work with fish to see what that is it would definitely be very beneficial

David PenalozaItem 38

to to bean sprouts and this the revenue uh sharing if we allow for beer consumption throughout the entire premise i don't see a harm in that um i agree just my two cents but with that um that

Valerie AmezcuaItem 38

those are my comments mayor thank you thank you and i second it i don't see any other comments

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 38

that's required to vote my apologies madam mayor i do have my hand up on the uh it's not here so

Valerie AmezcuaItem 38

So go ahead.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 38

No worries. I know technology is imperfect, so we're going to bear with it. But I wanted to thank my colleague for his comments, Director Hock-Scott. I'm in line with what Penalosa shared. I think capitalizing on expanding alcohol services at the zoo is going to be best suited for us to work with local partners. We have a number of breweries that you can work with, Cervezasitos, locally owned, from from Santa Ana, Santa Ana River Brewing Company, you have the Congregation Ale House, Native Sun OC, Mission Bar, all of which have their own beers that they create in-house.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 38

So I think there's a lot of opportunity for us as a city to really maximize our revenue, bring in some partners that have a good base of Santa Ana merchants already who are buying from them. And I think it's a good opportunity for us to really look at how can we improve our services and other amenities that we have. So I'm supportive of that, and I look forward to taking this vote. That's my final comments. Thank you, sir.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 38

That's your prior vote.

Jennifer L. HallItem 38

Item number 38, a motion by Councilmember Penalosa, seconded by Mayor Meskwa, to approve the agreement with Bean Sprouts at the Santa Ana Zoo with the caveat of asking them to research use of Santa Ana vendors.

Jennifer L. HallItem 38

And the vote is 7 ayes, no nays.

David PenalozaItem 38

Well, really quick point of clarification. I know I said pursue Santa Ana vendors, but you said research. I mean, I know it could be—either word could be defined, but I don't want it to just be research then, you know, it wasn't, but—Okay.

Jennifer L. HallItem 38

Noted for the record, the motion included the term pursue Santa Ana vendors.

David PenalozaItem 38

Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 38

And the motion carried 7-0. Mayor Meskweth, that concludes the consent calendar. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 38

let's go to the business calendar at this time item number 42 is related to the nomination and appointment of an alternate representative to the southern california association of government's business meeting madam city clerk may we have some background information please

Jennifer L. HallItem 42

yes mayor thank you the southern california association of governments holds a general assembly business meeting once a year this year is the 59th annual conference and it will be held thursday may 2nd to friday may 3rd in palm desert california mayor mesqua was appointed as the city's representative to skag regional council for district 16 last april 2023 so she would serve as the delegate to the general business meeting skag does ask that council appoint an alternate in the event that mayor mesqua is unable to attend and represent the city at that item last year this

Jennifer L. HallItem 42

item was heard on april 4th which was when the mayor was appointed as the representative delegate and at that time Mayor Pro Tem Lopez was selected as the alternate for the business meeting there is no standing alternate from the city to Skag it's just for purposes of the business meeting itself so the request from Skag is for you to appoint an alternate Thank You councillor and panelists I will go

David PenalozaItem 42

ahead and nominate council member Sarah to serve as the alternate I'll second I

Valerie AmezcuaItem 42

just want to be clear I'm on Skag because councilman Vasquez cannot be there so he owes me big time because he was on it and then he called and said he couldn't do it so thank you all right let's prepare to vote yes so the

Jennifer L. HallItem 42

nomination the nomination by councilmember Penaloza and seconded by councilmember Hernandez for councilmember Becerra to serve as the alternate for purposes of the skag general assembly business meeting councilman and

Valerie AmezcuaItem 42

mandis voted second quick so nobody would nominate him all right let's vote

Jennifer L. HallItem 42

vote is seven eyes no nays motion carries councilmember becerra appointed as the alternate

Valerie AmezcuaItem 42

here we go let's go to item 43 is related to the mid-year budget update mr city manager

yes madam mayor members of City Council as Katherine Downs is walking up to provide her report and kind of kick off the the budget process this year my fresh eyes looking at the city of Santa Ana and their budget process it's impressive the way you reach out to the community the way you seek input in your budget process and how you use that information to deliberate and work for for the residents of Santa Ana is impressive. Tonight, like I mentioned, starts the process. And we're not looking specifically tonight for items from individual council members about ideas and requests to incorporate

into the budget process this year. We're not doing that yet. We're about to seek those items in the next few weeks from you, but not tonight. And with that, that'll give staff the opportunity as you provide those items through emails and through discussions with us. CAT will take those items, we'll be able to research those as staff, and when we bring back to you at your next budget, kind of a budget process, and to start deliberating those, we'll have a better opportunity to understand those items, research those, and provide you more information about that. And with that, uh uh cat downs will provide the report tonight

thank you mayor good evening mayor and city council you receive a budget update report each quarter with discussion of noteworthy items the mid-year update is the second quarter report as of december 31st recommendations tonight include appropriation adjustments and two staffing resolutions the first resolution would update some job classifications the second resolution would increase overall full-time headcount by three positions primarily offset by reduced part-time staffing the general fund is the primary

operating fund of the city and accounts for unrestricted resources with this mid-year update we have adjusted for general fund revenue estimates based on Based on information from the City Sales Tax Consultant, we are decreasing sales tax estimates for the Bradley Burns allocation and Measure X. These decreases are driven by drugstores, new auto sales, and building materials. We have increased the estimate for property tax in lieu of ELF based on actual receipt of the first 50% allocation for the year. Finally, based on the new federal program with higher reimbursement rates for Medicare

Medicare and Medi-Cal ambulance transports, we are able to increase our revenue estimate. In total, we expect to receive $415,000 more than previously estimated.

Based on recommendations from Community Development and the Police Department, we have requested two one-time spending appropriations. That would be the purchase of the third and main parking lot from the former redevelopment agency and some cameras for compliant interview rooms in the police department. In addition, we have two requests for net zero appropriation adjustments. The first would shift $10 million of new budget savings to the Memorial Park project. The budget savings are derived from

one-time ARPA funding for government services. The second would shift 4.8 million of the budget set aside for labor negotiations into the impacted department budgets. Proposed one-time spending is offset by the net increase of revenue estimates outlined in the previous slide. The recurring budget remains balanced for the current fiscal year. In addition to the general fund appropriation request we also have some restricted money recommendations to help fund the Memorial Park project the existing budget for this project is

nearly 16 million the request tonight would add another 13.8 million to provide total project funding of 29.7 million to match the latest project project estimates.

Noteworthy items for restricted funds include decreasing gas tax revenue to be absorbed by the fund balance with no impact to current year services. We have accumulated enough fire facilities development fees to fund another $1.8 million of fire station rehabilitation projects. And finally, we have a series of proposed adjustments to align restricted fund budgets to available balances and state and federal authorizations.

The current year budget includes funding for 1,398 full-time positions. 189 of those positions are vacant, with an overall vacancy rate of 14%.

For the current year budget, the next update is scheduled for May 21st. For next year's budget, community outreach began on February 3rd with the TET Festival at Centennial Park. To date, there have been over 500 survey responses and 1,200 visits to our budgeting tools. We're scheduled to seek early direction from city council on March 19th.

That does conclude my presentation and we're ready to take your questions and directions, but if the council would allow me to, I'd like to go ahead and play our budget video. It's four minutes long and it's part of our community engagement plan this year.

The City of Santa Ana wants to hear from you. We need your help to decide how to spend your tax dollars and which city services to prioritize in our new budget. The City Council adopts a budget each year to provide services to our community of more than 300,000 residents and 30,000 businesses. The budget is simply a plan for spending city revenue over the next fiscal year. The fiscal budget year is July 1st through June 30th. The current budget of $870 million provides police, fire and ambulance services, street and park maintenance, library services, water and sewer service, programs for the unhoused community, and more.

Funding for these services comes from taxes, fees and allocations from county, state, and federal governments. Slightly more than half of the funding sources are restricted, meaning the City can only spend the money on specific services such as affordable housing or street improvements. The remainder of funding is unrestricted, meaning the City can spend the money on any City service such as public safety, library services, and parks and recreation programs. During the annual budget process, the City Council focuses on the unrestricted money accounted for in the

City's General Fund. The primary sources of revenue in the General Fund are property taxes and sales taxes. For each dollar of property tax that you pay, the City receives approximately 19 cents, with the remaining portion going to countywide services and schools. If you shop or dine in Santa Ana, you pay 9.25% sales tax. The city receives 1% of the normal allocation plus 1.5% for voter approved Measure X. Measure X pays for 22% of the general fund budget. This important revenue source has helped the city retain and add police officers,

provide services to the unhoused community, and address the effects of homelessness in the city's right-of-way. Measure X has also been used to build and maintain parks, provide youth services, improve the Santa Ana Regional National Transportation Center, repair fire stations, and remove graffiti. In just five years, the City will lose $30 million of this important revenue source when the Measure X rate decreases from 1.5 percent to 1 percent. The tax goes away completely in 2039. The City currently has a balanced budget, meaning recurring revenue is sufficient to pay for recurring services.

In the upcoming fiscal year, we expect it to be more difficult to balance the budget. The City's costs for labor, construction materials, and supplies are increasing faster than the City's revenue sources. More than ever, we need your opinion to help the City focus on the services our residents need. There are multiple ways for you to participate. Attend a City Council meeting and offer your public comment. Complete the City's Budget Priorities Survey. You can do so by filling out a paper survey, online, or even on your cell phone. Use the City's online tool to balance the budget or select your priorities. It's easy and fun.

For more information on the budget, scan the QR code you see today, visit the City's website, or email the budget team. The City of Santa Ana prides itself on financial transparency. More information is located at the City's website. Here you'll find the current fiscal year's budget in detail, prior year budgets, annual financial reports, and more. Thank you for caring about your city's budget. Your opinion counts.

Thank you for letting me play that video. And so we're ready for your questions and comments and direction now.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

So thank you Kat. Before we begin, I might have missed so I apologize. There's actually a survey that our community can take. What is the closing date for that survey?

I believe that we have it running all the way until like May 9th.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

So the community can take the survey all the way until May 9th? Absolutely, yes. So for right now I believe we've had a little more than 500?

That's correct.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

So we just got started. Okay, and are we sending out Spanish English Vietnamese? Yes, and we're gonna have it at all of our community centers. Yes, it's on our website. Yes, because I know I've copied it from off the city's website put it on mine And we've had I think what over a thousand views but only 500 have been completed

Right the and this video that you just saw is being translated also into Spanish and Vietnamese All the budget materials, this video and the QR code and all those materials will be at so many city events in addition to the community meetings that we're doing. It's a robust community engagement plan we have this year.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

Thank you. I'm having a coffee with the mayor this Saturday at McDonald's on 17th and Bristol. If I can get something to put out on the table so that when people arrive they can take the budget survey, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you. I see Councilman Hernandez.

Councilman Hernandez. Councilman Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 43

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. Catherine, fantastic presentation. Thank you for all of the work that you guys have done to ensure that we're listening to our constituents, we're taking in their feedback. My question is going to pertain to looking at the Measure X dollars that we have. So looking at the mid-year budget and the Measure X dollars, I had some concerns about maintaining, you know, the parks that we're building, the community centers, the libraries. Can you tell me, you know, how are we preparing for Measure X to sunset?

Well, we have done a couple things. First, we refinanced our pension debt. That helped some. We have been looking at some economic development packages for some new and redevelopment in town. Those are the primary things that we've been doing, but when it comes down to it, the voters approved this tax, and then the city increased service levels.

And so if the tax is reduced, then the service levels will need to be reduced in kind, or we have to find some replacement revenue source for it. And backfilling, you know, 22% of our general fund revenue is a tall order.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 43

Very significant. I just wanted to ask that question just so that we can educate people who are watching online, people who are in attendance, that although this is going to be a big discrepancy in our budget, we are preparing. We have qualified staff like yourself that are ensuring that along this sunset over five years, we are taking measures necessary to address that. that I I think preliminarily taking a look at the mid-year budget update I feel very confident about what is being placed in front of us I'm looking forward to providing some direction I know that that is not what we're going

to be providing today correct correct thank you March 19th early direction

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 43

that's where we're looking for wonderful well thank you so much Catherine I don't have any additional questions at this time thank you

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you. Love the video. I appreciate you mentioning that it'll be translated so that would be very helpful. My question is regarding the survey for this. So we I know typically and I went to a couple of these budget meetings filled out the survey myself and usually we say okay what is the most important issue for you or what are areas of the city and I don't want to be a downer but But part of this conversation we've had is, you know, the sunset of Measure X and the revenue shortfall. Do we have a question about, well, what would you cut?

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

What would you, you know, what's less important to you if you had to make this choice? Because we up here as policymakers, we listen to our residents and we try to make that adjustment as necessary in working with our professional staff. but you know I can be up here and say well libraries are really important and parks and events and everything but I would like to hear from our residents

you know we do have some questions so there's questions that talk about you know the least prioritized services in in a short list and then on top of that our budgeting tool online where you know residents or whoever the public can go go on there and they can almost build their own budget where they're like, no, I want to spend less of that and more of this and whatnot. As each year, we will continue to build those out to be even more robust to lead people to give us that input as to what they would like to see, you know.

So to your point, we've started on it. And I think that being five years out, you know, know, it might be a little bit too premature to ask a flat out question of, okay, when Measure X goes away, what do we cut? But we're getting there and we will continue to evolve those tools and survey as we go along.

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

Thank you. Because I guess not just that, okay, when Measure X sunsets, we'll cut X, Y, Z, but also, and maybe this is a poor framing of it, but as we de-priority, or maybe that is the list, right? the lowest priority items we deprioritize that and we set aside more money for whether it's the pension payment or other debt so that the hit won't be so hard if you think that that is sufficient information for staff and and think that we can really work that in as staff gives us

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

you know robust recommendations that's fine thank you thanks thank you councillor becerra

Phil BacerraItem 43

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So in looking at this, so we're seeing potentially a combined estimated reductions from November 2023. It looks like a combined reduction of $6.5 million in sales tax. Is that correct?

Phil BacerraItem 43

That may be correct. And I'm taking this from the staff report. I think you had reductions from 2023 and then what we're estimated at. and it came out to about 6.5 million.

Phil BacerraItem 43

Anyways, so with that, in the report, the city's sales tax consultant noted that there's a decrease in general retail. And I would just say that until we start investing and keeping our revenue generating areas clean and safe, we're going to see more lost revenue. So at some point in time, and everybody needs to hear this and understand this, If we don't protect these areas, what we're going to see is this council, or some members of this council, come and ask for an increase in the sales tax. We already pay the highest in Orange County.

Phil BacerraItem 43

Right now, the Trader Joe's on South Bristol, if you drive in four different directions for 15 minutes, you can hit another Trader Joe's. People aren't forced to go there. And when they encounter the drug addicts, the folks trying to jiggle their car door handles, they're just going to go somewhere else. And then all of a sudden we're going to say, well, gosh, what do we cut? We should be talking about revenue generation. You look at the auto mall over on Ettinger. I don't blame people for not buying a car there because when they get off the freeway and they see the encampments on the off ramps, what do they do?

Phil BacerraItem 43

Probably get up back on the freeway and go to another auto mall. We need to do more to protect our revenue generating areas. Anaheim does that with the resort area. South Coast Plaza is protected by Costa Mesa. And yet we don't have that. What do I always hear from our staff about where we need to focus our efforts? East First Street. East First Street, really? That's our revenue generating area? That's where we want to protect? Now I know some people tonight thought that affordable housing was a revenue generator, but let me be clear, it's not. So our commercial core areas is where we need to protect. We need more officers.

Phil BacerraItem 43

We need more resources dedicated there, or else you're going to see the council ask the voters for more of your money. With that, on exhibit four for PD, it shows 77 total vacancies. AC Rodriguez, can you just update us on the vacancy rate for PD?

For the sworn police officer vacancy rate, we're approximately about 9%, which is 37, 38 vacancies. Okay. As far as the remainder of all the other vacancies, I think the exhibit said we were at, what was it?

It shows a total of 77. So, a total for professional staff and sworn officers.

Phil BacerraItem 43

Okay, great. I think one thing we need to start looking at in the midyear is ways that we can further enhance recruitment because I think AC Rodriguez, thank you for your efforts to have us increase the dollar amount that we're offering to recruit folks, but I think in conversations we've had we've talked about potential laterals and how do we do more to get folks to fill those vacancies we need more bodies in pd so whatever we can do i think that's part of the mid-year we need to talk about that um and the last thing i'll say is that again i'm going to keep harping on revenue

Phil BacerraItem 43

generation and that we need to make sure that we are doing more when it comes to hotels right now the existing hotels we have i get so many of these sig event emails for just things that are happening there that folks visiting our city should not have to face and the best thing about a hotel is the tot why because it's not our residents paying for that tax it's folks from outside the city paying that tax we need to do more to enhance revenue coming from hotels we have a concentration of hotels right up against our freeways i think what we need to do is do more to make them safer

Phil BacerraItem 43

and cleaner and then i would ask staff as far as a more longer term vision what are we doing to attract hotels i would say the last hotel built in santa ana was probably over a decade ago that's not good i mean you go just one city north and it's a complete opposite we need to do more to attract revenue those are ways to do it without having to reach into our residents pockets

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

so those are my comments thank you mayor thank you i don't see any other comments here i'm going to speak and then we'll move on um so mr city manager there's eight vacancies in the city attorney's office Laura or somebody can answer what are those are attorneys what exactly are the positions are they yes vacancies is it just correct mayor I believe there

are three to four vacancies for rent stabilization enforcement three three attorneys, one paralegal. We also have an executive secretary position and two senior assistant positions.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

So for rent stabilization, we have to hire three to four additional attorneys?

Correct, or contract out those services.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

Or contract them. Okay, so that's going to cost us a good chunk of change there. So let me go back, Chief, to where you were speaking a minute ago. go 77 total vacancies 640 positions of 23 24 funded so you said about 37 38 vacancies is sworn non sworn we're talking dispatchers we're talking

critical positions yes it includes dispatchers professional staff senior

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

your office assistants and whatnot okay thank you and then i see 52 total vacancies in public works so the reason i i i mean the public works for last is because you know we do a lot of things in the city you know we have a lot of ribbon cuttings we have a lot of park openings we have a lot of really good things going on but when we start talking about the budget and when cat comes back presents to us and Mr. City Manager when you start asking the council what do we want or need what does the city want or need and what is the survey going to show right because last year the survey showed that the top two issues were

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

homelessness and public safety and I can probably bet you dollars to donuts this year is going to be homelessness and public safety it's going to be the same because that all the constituents I talked to it's homelessness and public safety and it's not that they're against police but it's why don't they come why don't we have enough where are they what are you doing I want a substation more on and on and on why are there homeless people here they're naked on our streets they're walking the middle of the road they're getting hit by people that are driving getting killed accidentally I mean they're walking the middle street

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

they're naked you know they're sticking a needle in their arm so I'm gonna I I don't know, Kat, I'll bet you a good bottle of tequila that it's, I don't know that you drink, but the top two is going to be public safety and homeless. I don't drink, and I would not take that bet.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

I do drink, actually. All right. I see Dale back there. Dale will take that bet for me. So, well, I don't know. Since I've become the mayor, I don't drink, so it's scary. So, no, the only reason I say that is because, you know, I'm glad that Mayor Pro Tem brought up Measure X because I brought it up a couple meetings ago. And the reason, as we met, when we started talking about it, I started bringing it up. And I know I've talked to a couple of council members up here about it because we were not, since I got elected 14 months ago, it seems like forever, nobody was talking about it. So thank you for sharing this.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

And I know that you're preparing, but there really is a difficult to prepare. Right? Yeah, thank you for your honesty. I appreciate it. You're saying it is. Yeah, that's difficult. Because the first chunk that we're going to lose is $30 million. Yes. I hope everybody's watching. $30 million. The second chunk we're going to lose is $65 million. So what's going to happen, because I'm not going to be sitting here, what's going to happen is that somebody up here, whoever's going to be sitting here is going to say, let's take it back out to the voters and have them pay this tax again. Well, I'm going to vote no,

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

and I'm going to be standing next to all those other people who are going to be voting no.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

Because we need to generate revenue. We need to look at other things. We cannot just continue to give things away. We can't continue to build parks if we can't sustain them, if we can't keep them safe, if we can't keep our bathrooms open. We can't continue to ask the bill to fix sidewalks and, you know, all the things. This weekend I got a text from one of my dear friends. She was at Thornton Park. That's your side of town. And in the park, her granddaughter tripped because there's some cracks there that you should fix.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

And she busted her lip open and lost her tooth. And so I said, we'll file a report with the city and, you know, we'll probably, I don't know, there's a process that we'll take and somebody will be in touch with you. And she said, no, why would I do that? I'm not going to take money from my city. I'll just take it to the doctors. But, I mean, those are things that we want done, right? we call on the bill all the time fix that you know crack pick up this or whoever we call an executive management and and we can sit up here this year and say we are doing great and thank you and Mr.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

City Manager because yeah you could say we're doing great today well but tomorrow's going to come very quickly and the first time somebody appears says oh measure x we're losing 30 million people are going to forget that we were having this conversation and so how do we prepare cat I would ask that you would come back to say, how do we prepare? Because those of us that run our homes on budgets and have to pay your mortgage and pay for college for your children or saving money to buy a car, whatever it is that you're doing, saving money to pay for a wedding, you budget. You budget.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

And so when Mayor Pro Tem went to law school, she didn't just say, well, I'm going to law school and everything's for free. You budget. You probably ate Top Ramen for a long time. Right? So I mean we budget. And so how are we as a city, I would ask you to come back and start having those conversations with us about maybe some of us will not be here but I would hate to leave it for those that come behind us. I mean because they're going to say oh that council member, that mayor. No, because I can tell you who brought this forward, what council brought this Measure X forward. I I can stand up here and say it very loudly, but I don't.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

What I want to do is be prepared and prepare our constituents that how, as we're moving forward, the years go by so fast. What are we going to do? We're going to, you know, we purchased this building here. It's empty. Civic Center. We were supposed to redo the whole Civic Center. With what money? I'd like to know. I mean, we dream big, and I want to dream big for the city. I really do. but I really really think it's important to look at one what the survey is going to show is it is going to show us that public safety and homelessness is going to be the top two issues that's what's going to show us and then we need

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

attorneys in our city attorney's office because we're going to be in litigation litigation litigation litigation with a lot of things are coming up so where's that money going to come from where does that money come from cat if we hire eight new attorneys general fund right so I thank you for this presentation thank you for the video thank you for the time to answer my questions when I call you the city manager as well and chief when I call you we all know that we need additional police officers and I thank you for clarifying councilman Becerra that you know I did not approve six hundred thousand dollars for police

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

officers and I did not approve a lateral bonus that was something chief that you did and thank you with the approval of the city manager and thank you so much for increasing that bonus and creating a bonus to hire lateral officers and i hope that we have been able to do that and um and it did come to the council to increase the bonus for hiring and the council voted on it and it passed so it wasn't just the mayor it was the council we could probably go back and look and i believe it was i'm not mistaken at least six of us up here that did so if not all of us so this was a great presentation I'm looking forward to the

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

budget but I just really want us to push out the survey any way possible even if we you know Mr. City Manager we mail a postcard out I know people don't believe in snail mail but it does work people read it you know postcard we have mobile home communities we can do door-to-door senior communities that we can do door-to-door I mean at the parks and recs events we should have it we should have a survey everywhere that our community walks into every door put that QR code on every single door because last year was only 1,500 and change this year let's go for 10,000 20,000 people responding to that survey

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

and I'm gonna keep talking about measure X as long as I sit up here because we have to be prepared and when cat gets that list from the council members and all of us up and say I want this I want that I want this that and chicken fat Well, guess what? You get it today, but that doesn't mean you're going to get it tomorrow. And if you take it today, how does it affect tomorrow? And I think that's where we think about long-term planning. So with that, let's get this item going.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 43

Madam Mayor.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

Oh, I see there's other speakers now. Okay. Mayor, Councilmember Lopez?

Jessie LopezItem 43

Yes, thank you. I was actually at Trader Joe's on Sunday, and it was really busy. It's a really nice store. I encourage everybody to go and shop there. And a good video cut, really brief, and I think it gives a good breakdown for folks that are interested in understanding the budget or an insight to the budget. I actually like the question that MPT posed. I'd be curious to know from residents what city services they would cut if they had to, as opposed to what is rated low on the survey as it is now.

Jessie LopezItem 43

So obviously the initial worry that has been for some of my colleagues here has been the drop off in Measure X. I know, I think in 2021 we've met on a Saturday for about two hours and I gave you all my ideas of what could replace it. So I think recognizing that you have an incredibly hard job, Kat, and your team in terms of making recommendations to not just the council but the city manager as to how where the city is going to progress during those years that we don't have the money that

Jessie LopezItem 43

we have now I don't envy your position whatsoever and so we can all agree that that the millions in sales revenue is an issue. And I wanted to know, I think on page 11, there's a 4.7 million, was that a project that was canceled? What exactly is that?

Jessie LopezItem 43

It's not clear to me, which is why I'm asking.

Just give me a moment please to find what it is that you're referring to.

Jessie LopezItem 43

Yeah, in the meantime, Tom, I would like to request information on department accounting, specifically for the departments that are going over budget. It seems like one department is going over budget, but I want to make sure that I understand the information presented in the staff report. I want to be clear on what is happening with the departments. Okay?

Jessie LopezItem 43

Councilmember Hernandez?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 43

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for the presentation again and for answering our questions. Kat, my question is going to pertain to City Manager's Office vacancies. I see two total vacancies, Interim City Manager Hatch. Could you give me some clarity on where those vacancies are?

I apologize. VACANCIES IN THE CITY MANAGER'S OFFICE?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 43

THAT IS CORRECT. THE DOCUMENT THAT IS IN FRONT OF US HAS TWO TOTAL VACANCIES. OKAY.

ONE OF THOSE POSITIONS IS CALLED A STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER POSITION THAT I BELIEVE WAS AUTHORIZED JUST LAST YEAR, LAST JULY, AND THAT IS VACANT. THE OTHER POSITION IS YOUR CITY MANAGER POSITION, BUT I THINK THAT IS THE OFFICIAL FULL-TIME POSITION THAT'S VACANT, I BELIEVE. I don't think there's any other positions vacant at this time.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 43

That would be correct, sir. Thank you. That helps me with clarity. I saw the two vacancies. I just wanted to ask that question so the public is aware. That's what those vacancies are. The topic of how are we going to recover from the loss of Measure X is important. I mean, there's a lot of things we can disagree with and agree with as a council, but the one area that I'm very proud that we're all unified on is we all want to work toward being prepared for the day that measure x sunsets as i'm looking at parks and recreation i think that this is a fantastic department that can help us generate revenue and i've said it many times

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 43

the civic center has a beautiful stadium the eddie westfield in our neighboring city of anaheim they hosted a ufc fight just this past weekend congratulations to ilia taporia february 19th 2024, this UFC card, UFC 298, broke the Livegate record for the Honda Center. On Saturday, which just passed, they generated 7.26 million with 18,186 people in attendance, of which one of our Santa Ana residents fought on that fight card. We have Bellator Fighters, which is a premier organization in mixed martial arts,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 43

residents from Santa Ana who compete in this organization. We have two fighters that fight for Golden Boy promotions, Johnny Canas and Alexis Rocha, who's number three in the world. These are world-class athletes who live in our city. We have Tony Ferguson, a legend who lives in our city. We have Jiu-Jitsu world champions in our city. We have Olympic wrestlers here. I think it is worth us reaching out to organizations like Golden Boy Promotions, reaching out to a top-ranked boxing UFC Bellator PFL professional fighters league these are all organizations that have sent and residents who are professional athletes

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 43

a part of their roster some of which are in the top five in their respective divisions they're already generating millions of dollars fighting in our neighbor city of Anaheim because Santa Ana doesn't host fights that's money that would have been in art in our community and it's a missed opportunity because the UFC had a top ranked fighter, Gilbert Melendez, from Santa Ana High School who won 12 world championships in an organization called Strike Force. He was selling out stadiums in San Diego on the regular, generating millions of dollars for the San Diego community. I think it's important for us as we're looking

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 43

to fill these gaps to really think outside of the box, and I think Parks and Rec is gonna be one of those departments that's gonna be a revenue generator. So I just wanted to put that on the record. I look forward to working with my colleagues in bringing these relationships to the council and hopefully we can host some fights in our city generate some revenue that will help us boost the hotel sales

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

thank you perfect thank you I don't see any requests to speak I did it's

Benjamin VazquezItem 43

requested on there councilman Vasquez go ahead your computer doesn't like me I know what it is I put it push it great video cat thank you for the presentation

Benjamin VazquezItem 43

I'M WORRIED AS THE MAYOR AND THE REST OF THE CITY COUNCIL ON WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IN 2029. I'M WORRIED HOW ARE WE GOING TO BE PREPARED. I REALLY WANT TO GET A GRASP OF WHAT IT'S GOING TO LOOK LIKE AND I WANT US NOT TO GO UNBLINDED. IF WE COULD HAVE TWO, THREE YEARS OUT, HOW IS THAT GOING TO LOOK? START PLANNING AHEAD AND START UNDERSTANDING WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE FOR US. BECAUSE WE, WHENEVER I HEAR COUNCIL MEMBER LOPEZ BRING IT UP OR MAYOR EMEZCO BRING IT UP, WE CAN'T IMAGINE WHAT'S GOING TO BE CUT AND WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN. I WANT TO BE,

Benjamin VazquezItem 43

GET AHEAD OF THE GAME AND NOT JUST KICK THE BUCKET DOWN THE ROAD. AND ONCE AGAIN, I WANT TO CALL FOR US TO MEET AND HAVE A REVENUE CREATING COMMITTEE. IF WE COULD START TALKING ABOUT THAT, GET TRAINED on how other cities are doing work and being creative and are raising revenue for the city, that would be great for us to have. So thank you. Are you done?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

All right. Nobody else. I don't see nobody else. I don't see no buttons.

Mayor, may I respond to Council Member Lopez's questions? We have the answers.

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

Yes. Yes, go ahead. Thank you.

Referring to the project that you saw, the 4.7 million, 4.8 million to be canceled, so that was a competitive project where we got an allocation from OCTA, but the bids that we got far exceeded the allocation that we received. And there's some issues with the alignment of the first street corridor, or first street complete street corridor study and so what we're doing is we're letting that funding go for octa

and we're going to compete again for it next year to get it back once we're able to you know resize the project make sure it fits with what uh with our needs etc so that's what you're seeing with that one got it thank you for the explanation and then the um the department that was over budget were you referring to fire and emergency services? I'm sorry, ask that again? You mentioned that one of the departments was over budget. Yeah. Were you referring to fire and emergency services?

Jessie LopezItem 43

Yeah, I think it's – I'm assuming PD falls under?

No, actually the reason that that appears to be over budget is because we pay a month in advance. So as of December 31st, we've paid for seven months of service, and that's why that number always runs a bit high.

Jessie LopezItem 43

Okay. I feel like the detailed financials on that. Okay. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

Councilman Penalosa.

David PenalozaItem 43

Thank you, Mayor Emescuwa. I just wanted to thank Kat and your staff for this presentation and the video and all the hard work you guys have been doing over the last couple of months. I would volunteer to at least do neighborhoods in Ward 6 to distribute flyers about your budget meetings. if you need volunteers if you need people I will happily go out there and do it lord knows I needed the exercise so why not sign me up the cards have already been designed perfect languages just print some and and I'll happily do it with with that said I wanted the only question I have and I'm pretty obviously

David PenalozaItem 43

the the the 10-year outlook is is scary to the to see and and and and it's something that we all have been discussing over the last couple of years. So that revenue generating committee is something that, or ad hoc, whatever that looks like, is something that we should definitely consider.

David PenalozaItem 43

And the only other question I had is, I know that with the streetcar, we, the city is anticipated to be on the hook for some of the operational costs. And that would, is that, when does that,

when do we start seeing that do we know well the the last i heard was that they expect to be operational in november of 24. is that correct nabil november november 25 sorry and so um with that said for the 25 26 fiscal year we'd be looking at um eight months of a contribution if they make that target date. Okay.

David PenalozaItem 43

And then at this point in time, we don't have any general idea of what that number could be?

The general idea is about a million dollars a year.

David PenalozaItem 43

A million dollars a year that would come out of our general fund or...? Yes. Okay. Which is, you know, also important to anticipate, and I know you have, so thank you for that. The other thing that I want to point out, and Tom, this is more your department, AND EVERY DEPARTMENT, ACTUALLY. I OFTEN HEAR COMMENTS FROM OUR EVERYWHERE FROM OUR FEDERAL LEGISLATORS TO OUR STATE LEGISLATURES THAT WE THAT SAN ANA OUT OF ALL THE CITIES THEY REPRESENT, WHETHER IT'S THE WHETHER IT'S CONGRESS, STATE ASSEMBLY OR THE STATE SENATE. WE'RE THE CITY THAT PROVIDES THE LEAST AMOUNT OF THAT PURSUES THE

David PenalozaItem 43

LEAST AMOUNT OF MONEY OF GRANTS across the board in every department. I hear that other cities, Anaheim, Orange, Stanton, they show me numbers and tell me numbers. I don't know how accurate they are, but I could imagine that they are and that our city is not so aggressively pursuing dollars to the level that other cities are. If we have one project a year that we request funding for from our state, you know that's three million dollars and we hope we get it but the city of Anaheim is requesting two hundred million dollars in projects they probably know they're not going to get the two hundred million but if you

David PenalozaItem 43

should ask for two hundred million they might get fifty but we asked for three million and we probably were lucky if we get one and a half so I know that there's so much money available well not the state or the feds but I know that the state's in a deficit and and i know that the governor's budget it looks a lot different than it did last year but those grants and that funding is still available to many cities and i don't think that we aggressively pursue that money at the level that other cities do so if we're looking at a lot of things that could potentially be covered by by these grants and i know those are

David PenalozaItem 43

sometimes one-time dollars most of the time one-time dollars and they're not reoccurring BUT IT'S STILL IMPORTANT THAT WE PURSUE THOSE. SO FOR THE BUDGET, I MEAN, I WOULD LIKE TO SEE, AND I KNOW, TOM, WE DISCUSSED THIS A COUPLE WEEKS AGO AT OUR GENDER REVIEW, I WOULD LIKE TO SEE US TRY TO BEEF UP THE GRANT WRITING STAFF HERE AT THE CITY BECAUSE IT'S, WE'RE LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE. AND THAT'S GOING TO HELP US BACKFILL A LOT OF THE IMPENDING DOOM THAT WE'RE SEEING. so so that's those are my comments happy with everything else that I'm seeing and

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

yeah thank you for for that work out and I'll just piggyback on council panelists comments as you know I'm in contact with our our electeds on state and federal level for some of us up here on a regular basis and you know when they asked well what do you guys need mayor like well I can tell you what I want it's not what I want it's what we want as a city and council panelists is right right we leave a lot of money on the table we do not pursue it heavy heavy heavy like other cities do and that's really sad because yeah you'll see other cities around us getting you know having checks and you know you see our locals

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

elected standing there with them we don't do it so I don't know that we don't have I mean do we have an official grant writer thank you mayor members of

the City Council each department does a grant writing there are some departments to do a really really good job at that others grant writing has at times been a lower priority to getting the normal day-to-day work out and so i think the issue would be for my recommendation would be dedicated resources get dedicated work done and so if you if the council chose to put money up up front to hire additional grant writing work workers to do various grant writing i think you're all right that you'd bring back more money that would more than offset the cost of those of

those grant writers and it's an also an issue of tracking the grants ensuring that we get them in on time as well as presenting to you all the great work we are doing i think if we put together a long list of all the grant work that we've done and all the grants that we've received this year it's more than you think and it's impressive but we do we do get more we do get even more

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

We do get them. And so earlier, Councilman Hernandez asked you about the two vacancies in your office. One of them was called a what? Strategic?

Strategic communications manager position that we're looking to reallocate to an assistant city manager position. But that position is vacant right now.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

Okay. And the only reason I ask is because wouldn't it be great to have a phenomenal grant writer that every department can send their information to? And I know we do submit applications for grants. I'm not saying we do not. We do. And we do get some good change sometimes, and sometimes we get a little bit. I understand that. And I see the emails from Congressman Correa's staff that sends us, hey, this is up. You can apply for this. This is the deadline. And I thank him for doing that because hopefully our staff are reading those emails and applying for them when we can. And, you know, it's great that he does that.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

I don't know that you know is he doing it because we miss out on so much as councilman panelists have talked about that we don't apply for but it would be great if we just keep pushing hard for those grads so thank you mayor pro tem thank you mayor just on this comment I've also heard

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

from our state and federal representatives but I'm looking at director Saba I know that in the past when I've been on other boards usually when you apply for a federal grant or a state grant there's like hey you got a pony up some amount of money too is that what we're facing i guess you don't have to answer the question today but maybe this is a follow-up item that you know we have a few of us up here saying hey there seems to be this disconnect when people are saying we want to give you money uh but where we're not going after that to the extent that maybe we up here would

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

like to see so maybe an informational report as to where that gap is and why that's the case i think would be helpful i know that grant writing itself is really um specific and then follow up and making sure you comply with all the requirements of any grant is also um you know costly and time sensitive the other thing I'd like to I guess see is when we sorry I lost my train of thought usually with when we're talking about generating revenue there's a lot of conversation including with myself obviously today we had a conversation about affordable housing and things like that in the city I know

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

we have a lot of non property tax generating properties so I think that in THIS DISCUSSION WITH THE BUDGET I THINK THAT WOULD BE ALSO HELPFUL TO UNDERSTAND THE LANDSCAPE OF THE VALUE OF THE PROPERTY IN THE CITY BECAUSE WHEN YOU LOOK AT SOME OF THESE OTHER CITIES YOU KNOW THAT ARE NEWER THEIR PROPERTY VALUES ARE WORTH MORE SO THEY PAY MORE AND WHETHER IT'S TO THE CITY BUDGET YOU KNOW COUNTY BUDGET ETC I THINK THAT WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR US TO UNDERSTAND AND MAYBE EVEN GET AN OUTLOOK AS TO WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE AS HOME SALES HOPEFULLY ONE DAY INCREASE and maybe that'll help us better understand when we get that property tax

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

in the future the other item I would like to I guess just comment on is

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

it's related to oh the question you know when we talked about decreased sales tax Bradley burns etc as well construction projects sales of you know homes would you say director downs that that's kind of a general atmosphere or or do you think that it's

specific to our city right now everybody's sales tax is pretty much leveling off some are going backwards my husband's city that he works at his is back going backwards two percent um so yeah it's a lot of cities are experiencing it thank you because i it's my experience that

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

you know there was a lot of revenge spending covet spending and that really helped us with online sales and things are starting to level off as people begin to tighten their belts for this looming r word i don't want to say it potentially i guess the other item i would bring up i know you and i have talked about this a couple years ago about some type of split role for property for for measure X for online sales versus in-person sales. Again, I don't know if that's even possible, or you run it down and our county assessors, that's not going to happen.

Yeah. Yeah, I did talk with our sales tax consultants. They've never heard of such a program. And based on how the laws are structured, they couldn't figure out how that might possibly work. but it's something that they said that they would look into, you know, in their discussions in Sacramento. I'll follow up again with them.

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

Thank you. And then the final thing I would mention is that we have state and federal lobbyists, Townsend, and I think we use Holland and Knight for federal lobbying. And so I know that I appreciate the fact that in the past, I would say, year, we've gotten on more emails updating us about specifically state issues. But I hope that they're also working with us for grants and that kind of, you know, with the infrastructure, sorry, the Inflation Reduction Act and all of those things that are coming down the pipeline, but they're really focused on that. Cause I know Kaiser Marsden is also,

Thai Viet PhanItem 43

our contract with them is for grant writing also, or following up with that. That concludes my comments. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Panalosa?

David PenalozaItem 43

I didn't need to speak, but since you called on me, I will say something that I was thinking to support also Council Member Hernandez's comments on that revenue generating with all the different, whether it's fighters or sports teams and whatnot. not and I know there are plans to invest and upgrade our stadium but that's another area where we really need to focus on is how can we figure out how to you know plan to to be able to heavily invest into that stadium to be able to

David PenalozaItem 43

attract whether it's fight sports teams or or music acts who knows right but um That's another area where we could also help back that up. And, yeah, that's pretty much it. And one question, Kat, actually. I know that in the past that we had heard rumors of the state potentially increasing the statewide sales tax. Is that still – have you heard any of that anymore?

No, I have not. I know that there's a working group at the League of California Cities on ideas for the future about sales tax because we do have kind of a convoluted sales tax here in California. It's a very high rate, and there's about a billion and one exemptions to it. But that's a working group that's just pulling together ideas.

David PenalozaItem 43

Or it wasn't increasing the sales tax, but it was increasing the Bradley Burns portion, right, for cities?

Jessie LopezItem 43

I was dividing it. Like they wanted to take Bradley Burns and sell it to some cities that had a lot of manufacturers.

No.

David PenalozaItem 43

Yeah, I hadn't heard of that, but okay.

Yeah, I have not heard anything. I'm sorry. No. Okay.

David PenalozaItem 43

Thank you.

With that, I'll make a motion.

David PenalozaItem 43

I'll second.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

It's fair to vote.

Jennifer L. HallItem 43

item 43 the fiscal year 2023-24 mid-year budget update appropriation requests and workforce changes moved by mayor mesquita seconded by councilmember panaloza vote is seven eyes no nays motion carries thank you madam clerk before the public hearing item

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

Item 44, Madam Clerk, please provide instructions to the public who would like to make a comment on this public hearing item only.

Jennifer L. HallItem 43

Thank you, Mayor. We actually do not have any attendees via Zoom. So once the public hearing is open, we'll hear from the speakers in house after the staff presentation.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

Item number 44 is resolution, adjusting sanitation service users charge. Mr. City Manager, we have our presentation, please.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, we have Mabel Saba. He's going to be giving you a presentation and a walkthrough on this item.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 43

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Potem, and Council Members. Before you tonight is a request to hold a public hearing hearing and adopt a resolution to adjust the sanitation fee for the next five years in compliance with Proposition 218.

The sanitation fee supports very important initiatives and cleaning activities citywide. These include street sweeping, illegal dumping, trash removal, sidewalk and alley cleaning, weeding, weed abatement, and enforcement. These pictures depict some of these activities.

The fee was established in 1991 and has not been adjusted for 27 years. The fee is charged to each unit in the city. There are 92,800 units and this number can increase as infill development take place. The fee is collected through the Municipal Utilities Service bill commonly known as the water bill on a bi-monthly basis. As you all know the expectations are very high to maintain

clean city and I can't agree with you more. As an example, mySanana app first year received about 8,000 requests. Last year we received 44,000 sanitation related requests alone. This graph shows the community's engagement and interest in maintaining a clean city. My Santa Ana app request has been on the increase, as you can see.

This financial trend shows the need to adjust the fee to meet the community's demand and expectations and the desire for a cleaner city.

One of the major reasons the fee needs to be adjusted is the cost of street sweeping. The old contract had to be rebid and with additional services and renewed state mandated compliance provisions, such as prevailing wages. The contract cost increased by 285%.

This slide shows that we followed Proposition 218 in assessing the adjustment, taking in consideration cost of living, staffing, contract costs, and reserve. The proposed fee adjustment is crucial to sustain the quality and availability of sanitation services and will ensure the continued delivery of these essential services. services. This table depicts the proposed monthly fee adjustment for the next five years

per unit. This table depicts the fee as it will be billed every two months in the municipal services utility bill. We have completed all steps outlined in compliance with Proposition 218. Tonight we ask you to hold the public hearing, adopt a resolution to adjust the sanitation fee for the next five years as is printed in the resolution and outlined in the legal notice that was sent to all property

owners in the city with that I am open for any questions that you may have

Thai Viet PhanItem 44

Thank You director Saba do any of my colleagues have any questions for staff I'll take hands since I can't director director okay I'm Hernandez thank you

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 44

madam I just want to thank you director Saba for today's presentation and for all the good work Public Works does I did receive many correspondence from constituents in my district sharing their concerns sir a lot of the concerns that i heard were that they were understanding that there was going to be an increase in cost but that they felt the inflation that we have in the state of california um you know it typically is between three to four percent this is a 45 almost 50 increase right um off of the first increase that we see we go from from $5.35 to $11.72.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 44

And so given what's happening in the economy, it looks like this is going to be something that a lot of residents are gonna have issues with. And I am going to align with their concerns. I am more-

Thai Viet PhanItem 44

I'm so sorry, I just wanna make sure this is time for questions because we do have a public hearing.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 44

Oh, my apologies, my apologies. In this case, I don't have any questions

Thai Viet PhanItem 44

at the moment sir apologies there madam mayor's back we're just taking questions from the council members oh you can finish i'm good i didn't see any other hands oh council member sarah

Phil BacerraItem 44

thank you mayor pro tem um so in the staff reported states the city will intensify efforts to address illegal dumping enhance removal processes and improve roadway cleaning services by augmenting sanitation staffing levels and contractual services. Isn't that what was part of the increase in trash fees? I mean, because I remember it was the Clean City Initiative. So help me understand how that differentiates from what you're asking us to do here.

That is almost the same, but we need more enhanced service because what we have asked republics to do, republic services to do, is to clean sidewalks and do pressure washing, hardscape, and many other things. This would argument and add more on what we have started with what we started with Republic. I have this Clean City Initiative Program, and the first step to it was the adjustment of what Republic Service is going to do.

this will enhance and add to more of what needs to be done. What we have a Republic doing is not sufficient, although it is quite a bit, but it's not sufficient to the amount of work that we need to do in the city. And again, most of this increase revolves around street sweeping where Republic is not doing the street sweeping for us. But this again will enhance, add a lot more of what we

Phil BacerraItem 44

started with the public okay no no thank you for that director saba so so we've got something that's being funded through the fees that um i guess from the trash contract but you want to augment that with um with this increase that's correct and then so also i just want to drill down on the illegal dumping because our former city manager when i first met her coming on board of the council i said you know what's something that you when you got here you want to tackle And without hesitation, she mentioned, I forget the exact number she used, but it was how many cubic tons of illegal dumping we have in our alleyways, along our streets.

Phil BacerraItem 44

And so that was the big issue. And so when we, or when the trash contract was put out, I want to believe that that was something that we addressed. So I just want to make sure, though. So we're addressing that. This would just be to augment, like, the frequency and whatnot. but as far as when people are using the MySanAn app, they are getting the illegal dumping situations addressed, correct?

Yes.

Phil BacerraItem 44

Okay, and then let me, one other question I have, and I'll be done here is, why did the city reduce its monthly user charge back in 2019? Because I was reading the staff reports, it wasn't clear to me as to why at some point we just thought did public works um tasks and materials drop i believe um i believe that

three maintenance was part of that fee and then it was determined that three maintenance was not compliant with proposition 218 so that fee was dropped out of that charge that's why it was

Phil BacerraItem 44

reduced so that was for us to as a city to become compliant with property that's correct okay so we We didn't just drop it for the heck of it. We didn't just think we're getting a bargain somewhere.

No, we did not drop. Well, we dropped that fee from the charge, but the general fund picked up a portion of the tasks that were done through that fee for three maintenance.

Phil BacerraItem 44

Okay. Thank you for that, Director Saba. Those are the only questions I have right now.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

So I have a question. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I appreciate it. So what I see here, Director Sala, is that between 24 to 25 to 2029, it'll start at 1172 and go all the way up to 1345. Is that correct?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

Monthly user charge per unit? Yes. That's what I see here, right? So you said something that was key to me. I wasn't here when the trash contract was voted on. So you said it was not sufficient.

Right.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

Why was it not sufficient?

Because when we negotiated the trash contract, we actually had quite a bit of services to be included in that contract through the hourly labor time that was scheduled for Republic to provide that service. We have so much demand in the city that what Republic is doing right now is inadequate. We need to add more to it. And again, like I mentioned earlier, the majority of this fee is going to pay for street sweeping,

a contract that has changed from one million a year to 3.4 million a year through starting July 1st.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

And I'm sorry, I missed your presentation. Why did it jump so high? Did we change companies?

Yes. We did not change companies. However, we had to re-bid the contract itself. and the old contract we paid about $18 a linear mile for street sweeping or curb might they call it now we have to pay 58 prevailing wage is one factor so I'm

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

asking these questions I know the community is watching at home this is a big deal to them and so what you're saying is that because of prevailing wage and I'm not sure I agree that it would go that high but you're the expert prevent because of prevailing wage we went from 1 million to 3.4 billion or 3 million million million right yes million okay so did you think about possibly doing an increase by the tier you know like instead of going from 5 to 11 maybe go 5 to 7 or 5 to 6 because I'll tell you as a resident of this city I got a letter I don't remember getting anything else but a letter I mean And actually, I didn't open it.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

My husband did. And he's like, I'm not paying this because it's too high. So, of course, I'm going to pay it if it passes tonight. But we have people, we have seniors that live on set incomes. We have people that, you know, this is going to be a lot of money for them. And so I know this is just the time for questions, but I just want to be really clear that just because of what I hear, I'm citywide, right? I don't have a ward. I represent the entire city and so I'm everywhere and when this item even became a discussion or people started hearing about it they were not happy. What I did share

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

with Mr. City Manager and with Mr. Mendoza was that it would be great in my opinion and the council could disagree or you could disagree we don't have to do it that we call it a utilities bill instead of a water bill because I don't know how it comes across because I get it I'm like oh it's the water bill so because i don't think that people understand sometimes that everything that you're talking about is in that bill um so maybe that's something we can think of but i just find really clear that i can't support this and so if anybody else has any other questions or comments

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

if not um what oh you do have some i'm sorry councilmember lopez

Jessie LopezItem 44

Yes, thank you. I'm actually I brought my utility bill and I see that the sanitation is $10 that's because we get it billed by monthly so Just because I said up here doesn't mean I don't get these bills But can you walk us through

Jessie LopezItem 44

What hypothetically what would happen if the council does not not approve the recommendation that you are bringing to the possible council?

Sure. We would have to reduce the sweeping service by 73%. We will have to reduce the the number of miles swept from 54,000 miles to 14,000 mile annually. We will have to cut back the street sweeping from weekly to once a month for residential and commercial streets. We would have to cancel contract services and agreements. We would have to delete vacancies and not hire staff.

The impacts are just too severe if we don't have this adjustment.

Jessie LopezItem 44

And I'm assuming that the staff impact would be unionized staff?

Yes. With this initiative, we propose to add additional sanitation staff, maintenance workers and such, to enhance the service that we just talked about. The city needs a lot of work and I see it every day and illegal dumping is only one but we are having to deal with many other issues. Sanitation enforcement is a key. Cleaning the sidewalks, the alleys, sea sweeping is again another one but

also like what I've listed earlier all these services will be covered through through this fee. And that's what we have done in the past. The fee has not been changed or increased or even adjusted in 27 years. And I'm asked why are we jumping that much or why the increase all of a sudden. Well, that's the only way we could actually meet our obligation in the street sweeping contract and yet deliver all these 44,000 application application requests or app requests from Santa Ana, my Santa Ana app, otherwise we wouldn't be able to respond to these requests.

We respond to these requests right now within 48 hours, sometimes a lot less, but we wanna do better.

Jessie LopezItem 44

You do a great job, for sure. Do you know any other city or city manager, any other city that has been in this situation that they did not approve the staff recommendation? recommendation and can you let us know if that impacted property values?

So the first of all, I agree completely with Nabil about the cost of street sweeping. It was just in a previous city and then we were seeing that just about the same rates where it was about $18 to $20 a curb mile to $50 plus. plus, just two to three-fold increase in costs. And so that's just happening everywhere with the services. These services are vital. A lot of cities have – don't do street sweeping as much as we do here. Some cities have cut back on street sweeping.

Other cities have absorbed these costs in the general fund over time instead of enhancing enhancing fees, but that cuts back other services, so it's got to come from somewhere.

The ability in Santa Ana to quickly respond to the illegal dumping and those kinds of things are vital to the confidence that the public has in our ability to take care of situations, and I think Public Works does an outstanding job, but any less resources to them would impact that, which would really be a detriment to the services that we provide.

Jessie LopezItem 44

Okay, thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

So, Nabil, thank you so much, and you're right, the services are great. You guys do a phenomenal job, and so I thank you for that. But I just want to, the reason I can't support it is because we have people who can't afford it. And you said it's been 27 years. I don't know why it wasn't brought up before. before, but we shouldn't have waited. And I know you weren't here. We shouldn't have waited.

Jennifer L. HallItem 44

If I could interject for a moment, please. We still do need to hear from the public on this as part of the public hearing process. Yes. I'm just going to stop. So before any sort of decisions are...

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

I'm not going to take a position. Well, I already took my position, but I was very clear on it. I mean, you waited 27 years, but can I ask why we waited so long?

Sure. Thank you for the question.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

I see some of you looking at me. I'm still okay because I'm just asking the question.

It's primarily because we had a really good contract for street sweeping for many years. It was much below the normal market rates for a long time. Now that we had to really go out and re-bid that contract, this is where reality for us hit. That $58 is really what other cities pay, if not more. So we got a good, when we awarded that Athens contract last year, it was a reasonable rate that all other cities and municipalities within that range.

So the reason it wasn't adjusted is because the street sweeping contract was a good deal for the city.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

So my final question would be, did we go, did we send out not just one letter, did we do a social media information, did we do snail mail, did we do a card, did we post it everywhere? Sure. Did we educate the community?

Part of the 218, we did send a notice out. I made a presentation to our ETAC commission. in the same time we made a presentation to Comlink and we did the citywide Zoom meeting invited everyone to participate and ask questions so that was part of

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

our outreach and that was what that was it yeah okay all right okay madam clerk oh I'm nope you're not here but go ahead Mayor Brota thank you

Thai Viet PhanItem 44

director Saba I appreciated the questions that my colleagues asked I I guess I just want clarification. Maybe it's from Madam City Attorney. I believe it's the Department of Industrial Relations, or is it the Attorney General's opinion that mandated prevailing wage for street sweeping, right?

That's correct. There was a change and an opinion issued by the Department of Industrial Relations. Last year. And that's why when we brought the contract to you, we worked closely with the Public Works Department to determine if there was any way that we could avoid having to do that, knowing the cost, but we had to.

Thai Viet PhanItem 44

I remember that and that's really helpful because you know we're looking at this very large increase percentage wise right but it's just essentially out of our hands if you mentioned some of the cuts that would happen if we don't approve this let's say we didn't approve it but we want to maintain the level of service what does that kind of impact on our general fund would it come out of of our general fund? Or is that a question for Director Downs? I'm seeing a nod that it would be out of our general fund.

We cut somewhere else. We cut somewhere else.

Thai Viet PhanItem 44

So would it be a decision of this council whether to allocate the additional $4-plus million per year from the general fund cut somewhere else for something $4-odd million in order to maintain this level of service. And in the future, it would be further cuts to other parts of, you know, whether it's parks or public safety in order to maintain this level of service.

Correct? That's correct.

Thai Viet PhanItem 44

Okay. And my other question regarding, you know, we're looking at the numbers that you're providing over essentially a 30-year period, would you say that had there been increases throughout the 30-year period this would have been a higher number? Or would you

say it's just full cost recovery? It would be probably a lesser of a jump because of the

Thai Viet PhanItem 44

impact of this new contract. Got it. And then my other question is relating to to the increase in requests and the enforcement for illegal dumping. For the illegal dumping cleanups enforcement, do we go and ask residents or local businesses, hey, do you have cameras? Can we find out the license plate of the car that's dumping the mattress?

That would probably be one of the things that we want to enhance on in the future, but right Right now, we don't have the sanitation inspectors and the enforcement to do that.

Thai Viet PhanItem 44

Got it. And then for the roadway cleaning and illegal dumping cleanups, et cetera, is this including a lot of the drug paraphernalia that I hear about?

It includes everything.

Thai Viet PhanItem 44

Okay. So this is really helpful, thank you so much. That's all the questions I have.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

Okay, I don't see any hands here, so i'm assuming nobody else wants to speak okay all right so i'm going to open the public hearing for members of the public that like to provide their comments in person or virtually madam city

Jennifer L. HallItem 44

clerk do we have any speakers yes mayor thank you we have three speakers for this public hearing if they could please come to the podium time limit for speaking is three minutes dale helvig followed by reuben ordiano followed by ben stripe

Dale Helvig, Ward 3. Wow. You know, 44,000 requests for service, I'm wondering if that's all for, or a lot of it's due to Republic Learning Curve. I think it is. And so I would expect to see that number come down. And then the 285% rate increase for prevailing wage and other things that's pretty amazing too but the thing is when it gets down to the individual user we're looking at a 219 percent rate increase per unit I don't know what a unit is I don't know if that's for every water meter that's

out there or what so that would be interesting to get an answer on but if you say it's per water meter and you have a fourplex and you're going to to increase it by 219% for the first year, 251% over the five-year period. That's $7,000 out of a potential renter or landlord that owns four units. $7,000 over a 10-year period of time is a lot of money that they could be using to improve their properties, and that's going to go away.

And what I see is a potential for these mom-and-pop operations to get slowly drained by the city taxes for the trash, for the sewer, for the water, for street sweeping, and everything else. And they're eventually going to sell their properties. And who's going to buy it? Possibly corporations. Those corporations are going to come in and say, it's not worth fixing up. let's bulldoze the unit build a new one put in a market rate now you've lost low income so if

you're looking at long-term issues here and i've heard that mentioned several times tonight long term this is going to be detrimental to the city you know and at the same time you know if we're getting charged 18 we were getting charged 18 now we're going to get charged 58 dollars per per curb mile, and I thought I heard we're going to increase the street sweeping. Why would we want to increase the street sweeping if we're going to have to pay $40 more per mile? It just doesn't make sense. If we just maintain the status quo, I think people will be happier about that.

But to charge the people that are going to be impacted the most, which were going to be the landlords that aren't going to be able to afford this it's going to be detrimental and i and i think that's going to be a problem in the long term so it's a tough tough call so thanks

Jennifer L. HallItem 44

next speaker reuben ordiano

Jennifer L. HallItem 44

ben stripe

Good evening. It's been a long evening. Ben Stripe, I'm in Ward 3. Currently, Santa Ana has the highest sales tax in the county and also the highest street sweeping tax. The only other city who opposes a street sweeping tax is Anaheim, and it's $2.33 per customer per month. Other cities like Irvine, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach have have all opted to control their spending and the cost to their residents by sweeping the streets only two times a month.

I'm sure we don't want to become another San Francisco, but having the reputation of the highest taxes isn't really palatable either. I'm looking at the report called the Sanitation Services User Charge Cost of Service Study Report, which took a FOIA request in more than two weeks to divulge the information, I learned the following information. Currently, residents are paying $5.35 a month for street sweeping, which means the city's raking in more than $496,000 a month in street sweeping taxes.

This adds up to more than $5.9 million annually in revenue connected for street sweeping. The contract with Athens Services, the street sweeping company, dated

$4,304,000 annually. If my math serves me correctly, this indicates there is currently an annual street sweeping budget surplus of more than $1.6 million. This proposed increase of $1,172 a month, which is a 120% increase, would raise the annual street sweeping collection OF TAXES TO MORE THAN $13 MILLION, WHICH ONCE AGAIN, IF MY CALCULATOR IS CORRECT, MAKES A STREET SWEEPING BUDGET SURPLUS MORE THAN $8.7 MILLION. THIS 8.7 ISN'T GOING TO BE SPENT ON STREET

SWEEPING. IT'S PROBABLY GOING TO GO TO OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL CAUSES, MAYBE ENCAMPMENTS OR or something. And that equates to spending twice as much on other things than street sweeping. But it's being proposed to us as street sweeping. I see this as a classic bait and switch.

I want to spend, if you want to spend money on environmental causes, make a budget for it, but don't call it street sweeping. Because that's deceptive, and that's what voters eminently detest. I encourage every one of you to vote no on this proposal. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 44

Mayor and Council, that concludes the public speakers for this public hearing. Noting for the record, as of Prop 218 public hearing, Public Works Department did mail out 48,302 notices, and to receive a majority protest would have required 24,152 written protests to be received. You did not receive that many. you received 104 those were distributed to you via e-comments and posted to the

Valerie AmezcuaItem 44

city's website I'm sorry I didn't understand that can you repeat that so

Jennifer L. HallItem 44

for a prop 218 hearing if a majority of the noticed participants protest the increase then you would have different options available to you or specified in regarding to denying the the fee you did not reach that threshold of a majority protest as you received 104.